The AC Handicap league gives higher handicappers an opportunity to play competitively against other clubs. Last year, our squad just achieved 1 win from their 5 matches, and our first match of the season had started in similar vein with a 4-0 defeat at Phyllis Court.
Undeterred, on 18th May our team of 4 confidently gathered in the Blewbury sunshine, ready to take on Oxford Uni. And when Oxford arrived, they were a player short, having found themselves only able to raise 3 players amid the exam season. So David Long stepped down, and agreed with their captain – Charlie Sharpe (son of Aussie croquet star Alison) – to provisionally score one game as a walkover to Blewbury: that result was subsequently ratified by the SCF, but only due to the lack of notice given (individual games should normally be rescheduled, assuming 72-hours notice).
Despite that 1-0 advantage, we still nearly lost the match: Charlie proceeded to beat Andy Evason 26-9; and Deirdre Cochrane lost by the same score to Oxford’s Mark Baker. However, in the last match to finish, Andrew Petit achieved the squad’s first game win of the season; with a 26-15 victory against Rob Pearson to square the match at 2-2. All 7 of us retired to the Red Lion to lick our wounds over a convivial and tasty pub lunch – on a day possibly better remembered as being that of Blewbury’s annual beer festival.