Words by Werner Splitz.

We have a saying in Germany – ‘the bowler who always aims for a strike, while ambitious, will strike nothing but their own pride’. It’s much more elegant in German because it’s just one long word, but the sentiment still applies.

As the Bowling and Lawn Games Editor for the Dusseldorf Daily, I get sent all around the globe to cover exciting new developments in the sport. I travel in the most cost-efficient vehicle by mileage to make the most of the newspaper travel budget, which means I spend a lot of time on old-fashioned steamboats. I’ve seen lanes in Lebanon, gutterballs in Guyana and turkeys in Tonga. My passion for tenpin is what keeps my sturdy Teutonic heart beating at a sensible, practical rhythm, above even my loving and supportive family.

I mention family here (of course including my loving wife Mitzi, my boy Fritz and my darling daughter Aperol) because I feel that, in my newest assignment, I have found one. My boss called me into his office earlier this year with a proposal – an exciting new league in North London, Premier League Bowling, was adding a fourth team to its roster. My task was to bed in with this new team, the King Pins, and document their journey as they navigated the pressures and pitfalls of being the tournament underdogs. I packed my suitcase immediately with enough currywurst and pfannkuchen to last the trip, waved my family goodbye and hopped aboard the next available steamer down the Rhine.

Less than one nautical week later, I had my first meeting with the team in the King Pins HQ: a dusty saloon on the rough outskirts of Kingston, owned by mysterious team captain ‘The Sheriff.’ She has her boots up on the table – spurs on her heels, I notice, which definitely aren’t regulation lane footwear. I ask her: why now? Why shake up the league with a new team at all, let alone one that lets (I whispered this so as not to alarm the bar) women play?

“This town is big enough for the both of us: varmints and cowgirls,” she tells me, knocking back a whisky. “The King Pins are all about integration and equality.”

“Would you compare yourself to such historical champions for justice as Martin Luther King, William Wilberforce and Emmeline Pankhurst?” I ask her.

She hesitates for a moment. “Probably a combination of all three?”

Do the King Pins have a strategy for the season?

“Showing up for every game…ideally with a full team…and we’ll just go from there.”

And finally, I ask, what does The Sheriff bring to the team individually, beyond leadership?

“Dead-on accuracy.” She pulls out a revolver and fires six bullets at a target hanging on the wall, somehow missing with every single shot. One ricochets and hits me in the shoulder – she’s very apologetic and offers free treatment from one of the team’s multiple medical professionals, but on the basis of what I’ve seen so far, I decline.

Mood among the squad is cautious, but optimistic. They are one game down when I first meet them – the result immediately had them in a somewhat distant 4th place, but strangely some of the team seem to be attending ‘for the fun of it’ rather than to win, which I cannot grasp as a concept.

I get some one-on-one time with middling performer, Bazooka. I assumed from the name that he perhaps has some sort of military background, but it’s immediately clear when I meet him from his doughy, unathletic frame and lack of any discipline or expertise that that cannot be true. Is it true that you’ve already got army-themed celebrations worked out for spares and strikes, I ask him.

“I do, yeah. Fingers crossed I’ll get to actually test them out soon, but I guess today wasn’t the day.”

I say, do you have an anti-celebration prepared for gutterballs? He tells me he doesn’t, and I say that probability suggests that he should.

I enquire as to how he thinks the team’s season is looking, and he says “We’re a new team but we’re coming together really well – in pre-season boot camp one of the guys scored 91 one time! That’s pretty close to the best score you can get!”

I gently remind him that bowling scores aren’t out of 100, but actually 300, and he was so alarmed that he spit his pint out all over my face. I tried to finish up by asking him what his perfect bowling Sunday looks like, but he had what I believe you say in English is a ‘thousand-yard stare’.

“I just want to make one thing very clear,” the Diddler told me. “It’s just a name. I’ve got no convictions. Nothing that stuck anyway.” I tried to ask him about his first performance on the lanes and he insisted that his “magic fingers still worked, ask anyone.” His lawyer then advised me that I should not ask anyone this, and that he couldn’t discuss ongoing legal proceedings. The Diddler refused to make any further comments for this article.

Travelling to and from the King Pin’s first match in the Diddler’s dirty, windowless minivan taught me a lot about these plucky underdogs. They are untested, but they are hungry. Some more for pints of crisp lager and social interaction than for victory, but that’s something they’ll need to work on. Right before the first bowl, I saw genetic freaks of nature Chuck’Em brothers lead a rousing speech. “To me? To you?” they said. “No. To us.”

This is Werner Splitz, reporting from Finsbury Park.

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**PLB Fact Checker - The Diddler is indeed in an ongoing legal battle but a source close to the accused has confirmed that things are looking promising after seeking alternate legal representation than that of the infamous 'Le Nonceski'; who is still serving a 5 year ban after wandering a little too close to a 10 year old birthday party back in Season 2.**