Category: News

Hats with the Blewbury logo are available in three sizes:

Please contact me, Carol Jamieson, to try one. The price to purchase is £22.

That describes both the weather at the Short Croquet tournament that we hosted on Saturday 5 August, and sadly, my play. The vagaries of the weather are best illustrated by two pictures of Linda Shaw (courtesy of Carol Jamieson, who helped with innumerable tasks during the day).

Ten players contented the tournament over five rounds and everyone enjoyed themselves, playing the games in a friendly, but competitive, spirit. The field was quite strong, with four out of the ten having a handicap of one or more peels. If that means nothing to you, think ‘minus handicap’.

At the lunch break, an excellent salad prepared by Minty, there was little to separate the players, but as we began the final round, three players were still in contention.

Once the final scores were in, the winner was Dave Kibble, with five wins from five games. Paul Wolff was second with four wins.

I am sure that many of the players have already ‘pencilled in’ next year’s fixture in their croquet calendar.

We completed a very successful AC Advanced B-league programme even before July was out this year, not only with time to spare, but also by winning our every match.

We followed our opening win against Oxford University on 10th June by beating Winchester 3-0 on 30th June (Blewbury team Peter Allan, Avril Rangoni-Machiavelli, Paul Wolff), High Wycombe 2-1 on 5th July (our winners Peter Allan and Deirdre Cochrane, loser Paul Wolff) and finally Aldermaston 2-1 on 25th July (winners Peter and Avril again, loser Paul again).

Well played, all our winners!

Twelve years – that’s the unbroken chain of friendly AC matches between the Blewbury and Watford Cassiobury croquet clubs, the Watfordians on their annual summer tour. Today’s was a pretty fair result, with all games played to handicap rules: two games won by each club in the morning, a shared Sunday roast at the Red Lion at lunchtime, and two games won by each in the afternoon. Result: a draw for Watford on their final tour match of 2023 after their defeat last year, and a call for the resumption of this pleasurable match next year too.

In the morning doubles, Deirdre Cochrane (8) and David Long (16) beat Simon Hathrell (-1) and David Robinson (9) +1 on time, with our David securing the win by way of an audacious last-turn roquet through the hoop on Simon’s ball; and Steve Fisher beat Jonathan Lambton +4(t), for two Blewbury wins on Court 1. Meanwhile, on the other court, Mark Homan (5) beat Andy Robertson (10) +5(t) and Eddie Chung (9) beat Minty Clinch (18) +1(t), to equalise.

Back from the pub lunch, the drizzly rain driven by strong winds was not being kind to anybody. David Long beat David Robinson +19 in less than 90 minutes, and Steve beat Mark +25 soon after. Blewbury 4-2 up! But Deirdre couldn’t quite manage to hold off Jonathan in a very tight finish, losing -4 with one ball still on 4-back, and finally the doubles was going to time…and Andy and Minty couldn’t hold off Simon and Eddie, who won +8(t).

So if you were playing for Blewbury and your name was David or Steve, you won both your games: well done!

And as we were all saying our final farewells, a watery sun could be detected behind those still swirling grey clouds.

There were eight players at Phyllis Court Croquet Club and eight at Blewbury Croquet Club on July 22-23 for the annual shared GC B-level (+3) tournament.. The Saturday split was seeded and drawn to divide the competitors evenly between the two venues for the all play all format.

In blustery wind and rain on Saturday, all players dug in to complete their seven games. For those at Blewbury, the highlight was Philippa’s fantastic lunch. When the top four from each venue gathered at Phyllis Court to compete for The Cup on Sunday, compliments were flying. You’re a hero,  Philippa.

Congratulations to Paul Wolff for making the Phyllis Court cut for Sunday and for finishing 4th.. Meanwhile, Brian Jamieson and Steve Fisher regrouped on home courts to contest The Plate. By the afternoon, intermittent showers had given way to sunshine, inviting a shift to shorts and shirt sleeves.

When the hoops were counted after 14 games, it was business as usual..  Peter Adams (Guildford & Godalming Croquet Club) retained The Cup he won in 2022. Likewise Beryl Hughes (Cheam Croquet Club) held onto The Plate

As a first time Tournament Manager for Blewbury, I was greatly impressed by the camaraderie between the players. I appreciated Chris Roberts’s seamless paperwork and the regular updates that kept Blewbury in the loop. Sorting out two carelessly abandoned mallets that were required at Phyllis Court on Sunday was more of a chore. Once I’d identified their owners with numerous photos and phone calls, Paul stepped up to return them before play the next morning. One of the culprits was Peter Adams; as he said himself, no mallet no Cup.

I was watching the AC World Championship on YouTube yesterday and I was struck by a comment that Harry Fisher made while commentating on Reg Bamford’s play in his second game against Aston Wade. Harry said “when things are going well, the roll shot does not exist”.

What he meant by this is that if you can place the balls so that your striker’s ball does not need to move a long way, then this helps to increase the accuracy of your shots, which makes your play much easier.

Of course, sometimes you need to play a roll shot, but things are so much easier if you can do without them. It is worth aspiring to achieve that.

The weekend of 15-16 July saw the AC advanced tournament being contested on our lawns. The tournament attracted a high quality field, with 6 out of the 8 players having a minus handicap.

The weather promised to be pretty dire, with rain and 40 mph winds forecast for Saturday afternoon, but in the end, we only lost about 20 minutes to rain over the whole weekend.

All those who had lunch commented very favourably on the high standard of the catering, so well done David Long (Saturday) and Phillipa, ably assisted by Sandy (Sunday). Your culinary skills were greatly appreciated.

The games were contested in a friendly spirit and all players won at least one game. The clear winner was Philip Eardley (far right in photograph), who won all six of his games. He had a net hoop score of 102, which is an average result of +17. Very impressive!

Several players attempted to do a triple peel, and while some players achieved three peels in one turn, no one succeeded in pegging out in the same turn.

After I award the trophy to Philip, he said that he was very impressed with the quality of our lawns. I find that first-time visitors often say this.

There was one mishap on Sunday. Mike Porter came into the club house saying “I finally managed to hit something”. Unfortunately it was one of our coffee mugs.

Congratulations to David Vincent on his win in the qualifying competition. The three players who took him on in fierce heat envied organiser Carol Jamieson as she watched from under the gazebo.

David had a clean sheet after his three matches. With both on two wins, he fell behind Minty in the decider, but expertise and flawless long distance hooping triumphed over  inexperience and caution in a game that ended 7-6. Congratulations David and best of luck in the Bath semi finals on August 13th.

On a sultry Sunday, new member, Harry Crump, a master at Radley for 19 years, staged his annual Staff vs Students match at Blewbury for the first time. He teamed up with five of his colleagues to take on six students in three alternate shot AC doubles matches.

Drawing on the benefits of his first visit to Blewbury in which Joe King had introduced him to some of the shots and tactics, Harry and his partner Nick won their game, but the boys took both the others. Harry pointed out that up till now the staff have found it relatively easy to beat the students so 2-1 is a rewarding breakthrough. . He suggests that he and his fellow teachers will face even more of an uphill struggle after Joe’s upcoming student coaching session at Radley.

Afterwards they celebrated with sandwiches and Magnum ices until menacing clouds sent everyone scampering towards their transport. Brian and Carol watched the games and provided coffee and biscuits, a proper Blewbury welcome for the visitors. All in all, a delightful afternoon, hopefully the first of many as Harry develops his Blewbury-Radley initiative along with his own very promising game.