Reported by Peter Allan
How often have we heard that said? Well it certainly applied to some of the games in the Blewbury Super-B AC advanced tournament held over the weekend of 24-25 August.
In one of the first round matches, Richard Peperell had a four hoop lead over Paul Watson as time went. Paul was just starting his turn and Richard would get one last turn. Those of us watching in the club house thought that Paul would have to play his blue ball in order to have any chance of winning, but he chose to play black. This was an easier hit in, but as it was for 4-back, surely Paul could not score enough points. However, we then realised that Paul could draw level by making three hoops and pegging out his black. Surely a risky strategy as it would leave him with only one ball. Having hit in and made 4-back, Paul appeared to be eyeing up a peel at 4-back. (He was.) Would he make the peel, go round to peg, and peg out to win? This resulted in a big debate in the clubhouse as to the best approach. After much thought, Paul did not go for the peel. He realised just in time (we in the club house were much slower) that his blue was for hoop 3, not 4-back, so the peel was never on. Paul did go round to peg with black, and pegged out to level the game. Richard had one more turn, but failed to score. Paul was the first to score a hoop in extra time, so won a very tight game.
I was involved in the next nail biter. I was playing against Christopher Crowcroft. I got off to a reasonable start, but I missed a short roquet and Christopher made rapid progress after that. I was way behind when Christopher was on peg and penult, but in trying to set up a leave, he accidentally pegged out his own ball! I now had two balls to his one, but I was way behind. Could I catch up? I made steady progress, helped by the fact that if your opponent has pegged out a ball, they can no longer claim a lift after their opponent has run through 1-back or 4-back. Christopher did score the last two hoops, but I managed to keep going to win 26-25. The roar of the crowd could surely be heard as far away as the Red Lion.
All of the players were impressed that we managed to start the tournament on time as it had been raining for several hours beforehand. Fortunately it had not been heavy rain, so our good drainage meant that there was no problem. Some also commented that they had started playing on the assumption that the rain would have made the lawns rather slow. Not so! They were at their usual pace.
We had an excellent lunch, prepared on both days by Minty, but served on Sunday by Sandy.
Once all of the games had been finished, two players emerged with four wins each: Robbie Dodds from Shrewsbury, and myself. Robbie had beaten me, so he was the worthy winner. He said that he had really enjoyed playing at Blewbury and that this was his first tournament win. He plans to come back next year.
