SPR Bowling, 14 March 2024
All Star Lanes, 95 Brick Lane, E1

This year’s bowling competition saw a dramatic turn: for the first time in years, a team from Savills did not win.  That honour instead went to a multi-company all-star team modestly calling themselves ‘Mixed Bag’ and made up of Michael Green (Costain), Matthew Hall (Invesco), Fergus Hicks (UBS), James Purvis (Hines), Oliver Kummerfeldt and Jeremy Marsh (Schroders) and Eric Chong (unattached).

Scoring 807 points in total, they performed very consistently across the team, with six out of seven members breaking a ton.  The team’s top scorer, Michael Green (149 points) was also runner up in the individual competition, although here the brilliance of Dan Hill of Savills once again shone through – he scored 151, while Simon Brown of CBRE was third on 141.  Dan has now won the individual competition for the last two years, throwing down the gauntlet for someone to deprive him of a hat trick next year.

Of the six teams participating in the competition, CBRE came second on 726 points and Savills third with 621 points.  But members of the other teams, who included those from BNP, Oxford Economics and Income Analytics, would no doubt agree that bowling allows everyone the chance to experience moments of triumph, whether in making that elusive strike or encouraging team colleagues to pick themselves up after a stray shot.

The SPR bowlers also appreciated the chance to come together after their exertions and enjoy some well-earned drinks and canapés, while graciously applauding the prize-winners.

 Tim Horsey