Handicapgate… the sequel
Blewbury Croquet Club have launched a damage limitation exercise to put a lid on the affair known to committee members as the Handicapgate Scandal.
A wasps’ nest was overturned when one of our members — no names, no pack drill, careful with the pronouns — deliberately reduced their handicap on the CqE website below its correct level to gain entry to a tournament.
To compound the awkwardness of this situation our member justified their action by claiming that a former Blewbury player had also used similar creative accounting in the past.
The potential disrepute this could bring to the club triggered a welter of letters to the perpetrator of this chicanery, plus missives of apology to the clubs involved as well as relevant authorities.
And we’ve made a suggestion to the powers-that-be that there should be more tournaments for players with 20+ handicaps.
The bottom line is… the figure on your handicap card should always be the same as that registered by CqE and the correct figure should appear on the club website. If you are in any doubt, consult a club handicapper.
Volunteers, your club needs YOU!
A big tidy-up for the club’s grounds is being planned for next month following the successful mass spring-clean of the clubhouse in March.
Volunteers are being sought for a couple of Tuesday morning sessions — June 2nd and June 23rd, starting at 9.30am.
Blewbury projects manager Andy Evason, who is organising the clean-up, said: “The jobs to be done include the general tidying of things around the lawns, repairing the tiles on the gazebos, fixing the gutters on the gazebos and applying preservative to the gazebo supports.”
As ever with these plans, it will be a case of “many hands make light work’. Andy added: “It would be great to have a number of people to speed things up. If we finish everything on the 2nd then we won’t need to go ahead with the session on the 23rd.”
If you’ve got time to help out please drop Andy an email at andy3210213@gmail.com.
Founder’s Cup: King crowned champ
Congratulations to a Joe King on a pretty comprehensive job with the Founder’s Cup; he organised this year’s big AC competition, managed it, played in it and won it and then provided us with an in-depth report on the event .
Our graphic (below) shows all the scores. For every cough and spit from the day’s croquet please see Joe’s report.
Meanwhile, Blewbury were represented by David Long in the final of the National One-Ball Charity competition at Surbiton, although not with any conspicuous success. All he gleaned from his visit to the Surrey club was the knowledge that he needs some coaching on his swing!
Hilary climbs to the top
There was no mistaking the winner of CqE’s May One-Day Short Croquet Tournament at Blewbury… I’m pretty sure that Hilary Bird is the only player around these parts who wears flip-flops on the courts!
Hilary, ex-Caversham but now a member of the Guildford and Godalming club, beat a field of 18 players, including eight of our own.
After a gloriously warm and sunny day of competition Hilary received her prize of an inscribed glass from tournament manager Joe King.
Date fixed for Longman Cup clash
Blewbury’s Longman Cup second round tie against Kington Langley will be played here on Thursday, June 11th.
It’s a chance for revenge over the Chippenham club, who knocked us out of this prestigious national AC competition last year. Indeed, our first round win over Bristol was our first in the Longman for nine years.
As ever, some support would be appreciated by Captain of Croquet Andrew Petit and his team as they contend for a place in the quarter-finals. You might pick up some reflected glory!
Bath get a soaking
Blewbury got off to a great start to their SWCF Short Croquet League campaign by thrashing Bath 10-2 in their opening fixtures.
Joe King and Andrew Petit both won all three of their matches while Avril Rangoni-Machiavelli and Andy Evason both had two wins each.
The match was truncated somewhat by the arrival of a hailstorm; with the result already decided it was agreed to forego the fourth round of matches and our visitors fled.
On the same day there was another wash-out involving Blewbury, this time the start of the club’s 3+ GC League fixtures, which ended with us on the wrong end of a 7-1 drubbing at the hands of Phyllis Court C.
The really bad news was that we were up against the weaker of the two Phyllis Court squads in that division. We will welcome the stronger one to Blewbury next month with some trepidation.
One of the few happier moments from that trip to Henley was our being joined on the courts by a family of goslings (above).
Memorial service for Minty
A service of thanksgiving for the life of the late, great Minty Clinch will be held in Chelsea, West London, on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 24th.
Minty, who passed away last November aged 83, had a packed funeral service at St.Mary’s, Uffington, and next month she will saluted again by former colleagues from the capital’s travel-writing fraternity.
Our club will be represented at the ceremony by Avril Rangoni-Machiavelli, Sandy Millikin and David Long. Anyone else from Blewbury wishing to say a final farewell to their old friend should contact David so that he can liaise with the family.
Tread carefully, Brian!
Here’s a good shot of Brian Jamieson on his way to victory over Edmund Shirley in the semi-final of Blewbury’s heat of the All-England GC handicap tournament.
Look closely and you’ll see that Brian had to be very careful not to kick his black ball as he ran the hoop with his blue. The previously unbeaten Edmund was certainly watching very closely!
Brian was one of two Blewbury players to progress to the area finals of the competition, along with yours truly. We hope to be playing our next round at Phyllis Court in July, rather than Surbiton.
And we hope it will be a great deal warmer than it was for this round.
Many thanks to Carol Jamieson for the images in this newsletter