Over the summer we have become accustomed to it not raining at all. However, that came to an end on Saturday – possibly earlier, but I was away on holiday. The AC Advanced Super-B tournament took place over the weekend of 29-30 August 2026, and we had quite a lot of rain, to the extent that parts of lawn 2 were noticeably squelchy during Saturday afternoon. Nine players did battle over the two days and everyone said that they had a good time, even those who were less than successful at play. I ran the tournament as a flexible Swiss tournament since that minimises the time that any one player is waiting for their next game. Few games went to time, so that helped to keep things moving. And speaking of things Swiss, Peter Payne had travelled from Switzerland to play in the tournament. If you count Robert Upton travelling from Wales, it was a rather international event.

The lawns were in excellent condition, as one would expect, although as I arrived on Saturday morning, they looked rather like a bilious zebra, with green and black stripes. I have not seen that before!

Several players won many games, but Carl Brown was the only one to emerge undefeated on five out of five wins. He also managed to complete his first triple peel in competitive play, so he will be getting his gold merit award shortly.

As ever, the lunches were excellent and everyone who partook said how splendid the food was. A big ‘thank you’ to everyone who prepared and presented the food.

Postscript

Most of the player left after the presentation of the trophy, but Neil Kingston and Peter Payne were part-way through their final game (which could not affect who won), so Carl and I watched that. The ending proved to be very entertaining. When I started watching, Neil was on 3-back (yellow) and peg (red), with Peter on 4-back and 4-back.

After a bit of interactive play, Neil had a rush on red with yellow to 3-back, which was his next hoop. He made the rush to what seemed to be a good position, but then to the surprise of the spectators (Carl and I) he thought about it for a while and croqueted red to west of hoop 6, getting close to blue and black on the south boundary. Neil engineered a good rush to 4-back and ran the hoop with yellow, only to discover that he had not yet run 3-back! Peter capitalised on the mistake by taking black from 4-back to peg and pegging out Neil’s red ball. Things did not look good for Neil. He managed to make 3-back with yellow, but then Peter made 4-back and penult with blue, he peeled black through rover (he had already scored the hoop point), ran rover with blue gently, and then jawsed blue so that black would have an easy rush to peg so that he could peg out both balls on the next turn. Neil’s yellow was west of hoop 2, a long way from Peter’s balls. Surely he could not hit in. Not only did he hit blue in the jaws of rover, but he managed to get a perfect rush on black to 4-back. He made 4-back, penult, and blue was a good pioneer for rover. Neil made rover and for a final flourish, pegged out one of Peter’s balls, followed by his yellow, for a 26-25 victory. It really isn’t over ’til it’s over.

This year’s August Bank Holiday saw a re-run of last year’s fun-day, with 23 of our members involved in one way or another; whether playing, coaching, catering, or helping to prepare the lawns.

The morning saw those present trying out versions of the game that many hadn’t played before; whether GC players trying out SC, or those trying less conventional games – from Match Play One-Ball (and a reprise of my own three-ball variant) to Two-Shot GC and even Pirates.

The afternoon saw coached sessions for prospective new members, as we threw our doors open to a total of 16 visitors. Thanks to Peter Allan for the 10 who came from Wantage Bridge Club.

The lawns were magnificent, the catering delectable, and the threatened showers never materialised. It was a day the club could be proud of, and which hopefully may lead to some additional recruitment over the next few weeks.

(right) Lainey Summers (aka “Pinkbeard”) en route to a shared Pirates victory

David Vincent was the hero as the Blewbury C team clinched the Southern Federation’s GC Advantage League’s Central Division title on Saturday.

David won all four of his matches as Blewbury pipped High Wycombe Kites 9-7 at Hazlemere and completed the job with victory at the golden hoop in the deciding rubber. The Kites had previously won all of their fixtures.

Our star man said: “Wycombe had brought along some wine to celebrate winning the title and they kindly gave us some to celebrate instead. Unfortunately I had to drive home.”

Skipper Andy Evason and Philippa Turner both had two wins and Sarah Donne also recorded an important victory in the last round of matches.

Andy’s team will now play off against the winners of the North and South divisions for the overall league title.

The seven days marking the turn of the month perhaps typified for me the life of the croquet player and how much depends on our all too unpredictable mental attitude.

On July 28th I was looking forward to playing at Bristol for the first time, envisaging lovely lawns maintained by a well-resourced city club. So it was a bit of a shock arriving to find the two completely brown, patchy and generally very rough-looking lawns we were expected to play on. 

Sure enough, it was a day of playing something more akin to “Crazy Croquet” rather than Short Croquet. It seems I adapted the worst in our team, as I lost all four of my games — which was the main reason why we lost the match.

However, our hosts were delightful and did their best to make up for the dreadful state of their lawns with a cream tea and home-made cake.

The next day I was down at Hamptworth for another SC match. Would their lawns be any better? At first sight, the signs were hopeful; there were actually patches of green on the lawn! However, further inspection and the subsequent match showed that playing on a random patchwork of almost bald lawn and roughly-mown green grass was even more unpredictable than the day before. 

Nevertheless,  it seems I managed to improve my Crazy Croquet skills, winning a respectable two out of four. Blewbury managed to do just enough to draw the match, mainly thanks to Joe King winning all four of his games.

On the Friday I returned with relief to the lovely green, level lawns of Blewbury to play the redoubtable Raghu Iyer of Phyllis Court for an AC C level play match alongside Paul Wolff. Relief soon turned to frustration as, having begun to get the hang of Crazy Croquet, I no longer seemed to be able to play on a proper grass court at all; or maybe it was the change back to a full-size court. 

Eventually my AC skills began to come back to me, but it wasn’t enough to overtake Raghu’s early lead and I lost 17-21. Sadly Paul had a similar experience against Paul Franklin of Phyllis Court and so between us we lost the match.

The next day Blewbury hosted the CqE August Short Croquet tournament. Nineteen players had been entered including some with seriously low handicaps, such as Dave Kibble on four peels, licking their lips at the prospect of playing on our beautiful lawns.

I was somewhat apprehensive after a pretty disastrous week—after all, I had lost seven games out of nine in the previous four days — but maybe it had all been some kind of weird preparation for the Short Croquet tournament, because I played one of my best competitive days in  my four-year croquet career. I won all four of my matches, including beating Andy Evason after he had pegged out my first ball, by taking my second ball all the way round to peg on a three-ball break. I also beat the formidable Dave Kibble. 

Several others had also won four games, but most had lost one or two as well. Only one other, Adam Huby of Watford, had like me a 100 per cent record. Ideally we should have played each other in a grand final, as we had not previously played each other. However, it was getting late after a long hot day and people needed to get home, so it came down to Joe’s tie-breakers, which he had previously set out for all too see. On this basis — by Joe’s formula I had beaten a better-playing opposition — I was declared the winner and received the lovely engraved glass.

A day later we hosted a friendly match against the Watford players who were coming to the end of their summer tour. I joined for the afternoon match and by chance ending up playing a handicap AC match against the one and the same Adam Huby. Needless to say, I lost! 

I offered to give my SC victor’s glass to Adam, but he graciously declined my offer.

The Good Book says that pride comes before a fall. So on the next day with great confidence after my mighty SC victory, I challenged Edmund Shirley to a match on the KMT ladder. I was intending to improve my second from bottom status. Of course I lost! 

I now languish at the very bottom of the ladder. But there’s always tomorrow!

The morning will be devoted to playing some of the more bizarre games that can be played on our courts. None of it is to be taken too seriously. We will start at 09:30.

Around 13:00 lunch will be available for £15 a head provided by Philippa and her team.

The afternoon from 14:00 to 17:00 will be the time when we will welcome non-members to come and see what we have to offer. We will show people the rudiments of GC and AC on half size courts. Members staying for the afternoon are there primarily to look after our guests and should not expect a game.

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Nine players arrived at Blewbury on a hot Saturday morning to contest the AC Advanced Weekend tournament. It was a strong field as only Andy Evason and myself had a positive handicap. The lawns were in excellent condition, which was much appreciated by all of the players. I ran the tournament as a flexible Swiss, so that with 9 players, whoever is not playing can start a game with any game that finishes. This keeps the play flowing nicely. Also, with so many top level players, games tend to be quick. In fact, of the 30 games that were played over the weekend, only one went to time.

Nearly half of the games, 14 out of 30, were won with a triple peel, so if you want to see how it’s done, you didn’t need to go to watch the MacRobertson Shield (the World Cup of AC) – just come to Blewbury.

At the end of the first day, Nick Parish (Surbiton) was on five out of five wins (all TPs) – and that was with a mallet borrowed from the club as he had left his at home – so he was the clear favourite, but things changed on Sunday. Nick lost his first two games, presumably because he now had his own mallet and not the Blewbury Blaster! Sunday proved to be kind to Omied Hallam (Nottingham), who won all of his games to finish on 7 out of 8. Omied plays at a pace that has to be seen to be believed. He won his first game on Sunday in about 40 minutes – with a triple peel, of course.

All of the visitors enjoyed the tournament. Andy enjoyed it since, although he only got one win, he got a huge number of points for beating Clive Goode. I was the only player not having a good time as I was ill on the Sunday (no doubt due to too much sun on the previous two days), so I had to sit and watch everyone else having fun.

The lunches were excellent, and everyone gave huge thanks to Philippa, aided and abetted by Deidre and Sandy. The visitors went away with promises to return next year.

Omied Hallam receiving the trophy

The Blewbury Blaster mallet

In the 2000s, as many of our longer-standing members will remember, Jim Bartlett was a prominent Committee member, regularly seen on court with his daughter Katherine.

After leaving our club, Jim saved Goring Bowls Club from development into flats, and helped to re-launch it 4 years ago as the Goring Gap Croquet & Bowls Club. With two small courts (roughly 2/3 & 1/2 size), it now has over 40 croquet-playing members, playing GC only.

Last Wednesday’s Friendly, played at Goring, was their first ever match against another club. Our team comprised the 3 pairings of Peter Allan & Avril Rangoni-Machiavelli, Philippa Turner & Jeff Drummond-Hay, and David Long & David Weston.

Many of the games were very tight: Peter and Avril won all 3 of theirs but, while Philippa & Jeff also got a win, the two Davids lost all 3. Their last game proved decisive: with other games all finished and the match score 4-4, it was fittingly Jim – with a jump-shot on the golden hoop – who won the match for the home team.

The sun was shining, however, and the tea was tasty. The real winner was croquet and the friendly rivalry with which it was played: a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon for all concerned. We look forward to our return fixture in September.

You don’t very often see a Scot with anything to smile about during a World Cup but Carol Jamieson bucked the trend when she won the C Level GC tournament at Blewbury yesterday.

Our picture shows Carol carrying off some engraved glassware after her hard-fought victory in the final of the CqE 7+ event.

Carol overcame Jackie Bryant 7-6 to take the trophy, which she received from the runner-up, who was also the manager of the competition.

The eight-strong field — including four Blewbury players — had to contend with temperatures reaching 29C in an event which was another triumph for our organisation and pristine courts.

Full results from the event can be found at https://croquetscores.com/2026/gc/blewbury-one-day-c-level-turnament-1/competition/ko-1.