This year’s Roger Cambray Memorial Shield, our season-starting One-Ball tournament, was held on Easter Monday, 6th April.
With 16 entrants, the morning was organised in 4 blocks of 4, each block playing on one half-size lawn. The top 2 in each block then competed for the trophy through the afternoon, with others playing in a “plate” competition.
In the main competition, Joe King beat Nigel Cox in the final, while David Long beat Andy Robertson in a 3rd-place play-off. Deirdre Cochrane (last year’s winner) beat Claire King in the plate final.
The event was also our local heat for the National Charity One-Ball competition; with Joe unavailable for the Regional Final at Surbiton on May 16th, Nigel is set to represent the club. David will go into a ballot for any spare places, and Andy Robertson waits in reserve.
The event raised £177.50 for Save The Children, and everyone enjoyed the lunch provided by Joe King and Philippa Turner (with some help from Sandy Millikin and Tim Leverton).
This year’s Roger Cambray was hosted at Hall Barn, at the kind invitation of the Cochranes; keen to reprise the balmy summer parties that had kicked off the competition in 1998, and in celebration of its previous 25 winners.
With 15 entrants, the morning and early afternoon were spend in 3 blocks of 5, leading to semi-finals and final for the top 4 players. The block playing at Hall Barn saw Deirdre come second to David Seed – though David Seed had pre-announced that he would be retiring from the competition at the end of the block matches, so was unable to proceed to the knock-out stages.
Meanwhile, at the Croquet Club, two blocks were playing on half-sized lawns. Block 1 was easily won by Robin Brown, who was able to race through all 4 of his victories during the morning session, with Brian Jamieson narrowly pipping reigning trophy holder, David Long, to the runners-up spot. Block 2 saw Edmund Shirley triumphant, with Steve Fisher a close 2nd.
Robin and Edmund were seeded into separate semi-finals, as the block winners, and matched against Deirdre and Brian respectively as the highest-achieving runners-up. On Hall Barn’s lawn it was Deirdre and Brian who triumphed to reach the final which Deirdre proceeded to win; all 3 knock-out matches finishing 13-9. This was Deirdre’s 7th victory in this competition, 25 years on from her first, and she was fittingly presented with the shield by Chris Cambray, Roger’s son.
The Roger Cambray Memorial Shield is a light hearted one-ball event that marks the start of the season. It took place on Easter Monday, 1 April.
This year it was played on half size courts to make it more accessible to those who don’t play much AC. All will play with a handicap derived from AC and GC handicaps – there is no problem if you don’t have one.
The event will also be the local heat for the National Charity One Ball competition, with the winner being entitled to attend the final at Surbiton on May 5th. There is no entry fee but a voluntary donation of around £10 a head would be appreciated by the British Heart Foundation, the National One Ball’s charity for 2024. You will be invited to complete a Gift Aid form on the day to allow the BHF to claim the Gift Aid. We are encouraged to wear something red, the British Heart Foundation’s house colour.
The morning was organised as a Swiss with “about” sixteen players. Joe also cooked the beef. After an excellent lunch Joe decided that the top eight would take part in a knock out. The final was between David Long and Steve Fisher – David won and so is entitled to play in the final at Surbiton on May 5th.
This was a One Ball competition held over the Easter weekend culminating in a club lunch with a roast BBQ followed by the final on Monday 10th April. It is a social event with any net proceeds from the lunch going to boost club funds.
It is also a qualifying heat for the national charity One-ball, where donations go to the UK arm of the UN Refugee Agency (https://unrefugees.org.uk). We recommend that participants donate at least £8.00.
Block 1: Joe King, David Long, Sandra Millikin and David Grinstead Block 2: Duncan Sinclair, Philippa Turner, Deirdre Cochrane and David Vincent Block 3: Minty Clinch, Brian Jamieson , Andrew C Robertson and Chris Fairburn Block 4: Paul Wolff, Carol Jamieson, Avril Rangoni-Machiavelli and Anthony Hardwicke
Two went forward from each block for a knock-out: David Long, David Grinstead, David Vincent, Duncan Sinclair, Paul Wolff, Carol Jamieson, Chris Fairburn, Andrew C Robertson
Duncan Sinclair beat David Vincent in the final
Though the regional finals clash with the coronation weekend. Carol Jamieson will represent us at one of the the regional finals on the 7th May at Surbiton.
This was a One Ball competition held over the Easter weekend culminating in a club lunch followed by the final in which Paul Wolff beat David Long who was last year’s winner.
Paul WolffDavid LongEnjoying the lunch prepared by Joe King (roast beef) and Minty Clinch (the rest)
The competition will also determine our representatives for the national charity 1-ball finals in Surbiton later in the year which is in support of MIND. £150 was raised for that charity.
This is the Club’s annual One-ball tournament, meant to be played in a spirit of relaxed enjoyment rather than red-blooded competition. That’s not to say that the players don’t try to win! It’s usually played around mid-summer, but in this topsy-turvy year was held up until October, and became the final event of our full croquet season. Whether everyone was seizing their opportunity to get one last competition in, or the bracing autumnal weather was irresistible, we don’t know, but 22 members entered this year, surely a record.
Because of the numbers, play was split across two weekends. On the first Sunday morning we played in two separate pools of six, all playing all in each pool, ending up in these respective orders:
Pool 1: Minty Clinch, Sue Jenkins, Steve Fisher, Paul Wolff, Andy Robertson, Sandy Millikin.
Pool 2: Edmund Shirley, Peter Allan, Deirdre Cochrane, Rosemary Balsdon, Susan Tilbrook, June Wolff.
After brown-bag lunches and an exchange of groups, the following final top order was reached at the end of the first day’s play: Edmund, Peter, Paul, Deirdre, Steve, Minty.
The next Saturday morning saw the second ten of the 22 entrants play in two pools of five, finishing in these orders:
Pool 3: Nick Butler, Dave Grinstead, Brian Jamieson, Joe King, Carol Wadsworth.
Pool 4: David Long, John Garnett, Carol Jamieson, Robin Brown, Avril Rangoni-Machiavelli.
It ought to be said that the 1-ball handicapping system is very hard on A-class players. Robin’s handicap was -6, Nick’s -4, and Joe’s -3, so giving away up to 8 bisque turns in 13-point games was a bit of a challenge for them at times.
The wind was getting up, the rain was coming down – but a mere gale-blown drizzle – and after lunch a system of repechage eliminated Carol and Brian out of the top three from each of the moring pools, leaving Nick, John, David and Dave to play quarter-final games against Deirdre, Peter, Paul and Edmund respectively from the previous Sunday. Then David beat Dave and Peter beat Nick in the two semis played between the quarter-final winners.
The Final
Halfway – hoop 6 safely runAt last, the peg-out
In the ultimate final we watched two croquet players dressed as white-hooded pixies battle it out against the elements and each other. David Long beat Peter Allan 13-11, and deservedly carried home the triumphal shield. – David had lost his first game of the morning, but won every other game after that little warm-up. By an almost exclusively Golf Croquet player, it was a remarkable feat at an AC game.
Next year we plan to revert to Summer for the Roger Cambray Memorial Shield.
