Blewbury’s informal one ball tournament took place as planned, though a field reduced to 8 by sickness and admin error left me wondering why I couldn’t persuade accomplished GC players to give one ball a try. Their specific skills – placing long balls in position to run hoops and striking them cleanly through – are the backbone of a game that also contains a few very simple elements of AC.
Ask Philippa Turner who’d never played it, yet finished second in a field that included such accomplished AC players as Deirdre and Andys R and E. The handicap system favours hi bisquers, with Edmund and Sandy recording encouraging results. After a morning of round robin blocks, Brian and Philippa won their respective semis against Edmund and Minty. In a close final, Brian emerged triumphant.
Salutations to Blewbury D team, unbeaten winners of the north division of the SCF GC Advantage league. When they clinched their final match in the round robin block against Harwell 13-3, they booked a ticket to Ryde (top of the south division) for a semi final on the Isle of Wight. David Vincent’s C team finished in 3rd place.
D team captain David Dibben and Simon Bryant won their 4 matches against Harwell, with David reducing his handicap to 4. Jackie Bryant (3 wins) and Susan Tilbrook (2 wins) completed the rout. The same team will travel to Ryde on September 2nd, with the winners taking on Phyllis Court (victors in the central division) in the final. Cheering supporters most welcome on Monday: if you fancy a short sea voyage, David will be there to greet you.
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.
After a long summer of qualifying trials and tribulations, the Kay Memorial Trophy short croquet tournament climaxed on a blazing Monday afternoon. Ladder leaders, Andy E and holder Andrew P, competed for the first final place. By taking an early lead without using his bisques, Andrew set Andy a catch up that proved to be a few hoops too far (14-9). Meanwhile the Jamiesons fought it out for the right to challenge Andy for the second final spot. Carol, qualifying for the finals in Joe’s absence, prevailed (14-6), then defeated Andy by the same score.
In the shootout, Andrew used both his bisques to establish an early lead, leaving himself dangerously exposed to a fiery opponent with eight to play with. The ding dong battle swung to and fro, with Carol working steadily through her hoard to a successful outcome (13-9). After Peter presented the handsome trophy, the survivors enjoyed celebration bubbles on Tickers Folly Field. Brava Carol.
On the final weekend of the Olympic Games, Blewbury Croquet Club picked up a well deserved gold medal for Catering and Hospitality, writes David Dibben. The occasion was the prestigious Smokey’s Cup, an annual B-Level GC marathon of 14 matches in two days hosted jointly by Blewbury and Phyllis Court.
Step up to the podium Deirdre Cochrane for the sumptuous spread enjoyed by the lucky eight drawn to play at Blewbury on Saturday. Her feast of chicken in a delicious sauce with salad, followed by apple pie and ice cream plus strawberries and cream, was especially appreciated by the Phyllis Court cohort; apparently their club doesn’t offer such haute cuisine.
From my point of view, the playing side was anything but a success. Allocated to my home courts for Saturday qualifying, I won through to the Sunday finals staged this year at Blewbury and masterminded by the ever efficient Carol Jamieson. How did I beat the winner, Adam Newbould from Bromley, twice while losing to almost everyone else ? Eighth out of eight is not a good look. Over at Phyllis Court, my fellow Blewburians, Steve Fisher and Brian Jamieson, scored an honourable three wins apiece in the Sunday plate.
Smokey’s Cup finalists: from left Raghu Iyer (Phyllis Court), Andrea Huxley (Guildford), Alastair Bloom (Phyllis Court), Sarah Clements (Chester), Adam Newbould (Bromley), David Dibben (Blewbury), Patricia Mulcahy (Phyllis Court), Steve Baldwin (Compton, Eastbourne)
Blewbury buzzed at the beginning of August when 16 players double banked on four short croquet courts for the morning blocks. Four players, three games, four winners into the finals. Philippa prepared lunch for 14 – tasty curried pasta and salad followed by raspberry tart.
Next up, the semis. Would Dave Kibble’s skills off – 2 defeat Andy E’s surge of handicap reductions? Would Peter Allan come out ahead of Adam Newbould, a man who’s left his home in Almeria to compete in summer croquet tournaments nationwide. Yes and no, which meant Dave and Adam fought out the final. Big Dave raised the engraved glass but conviviality ruled, so much so that two days later, while his wife Karen was winning the hi-bisquers tournament at Cheltenham, Adam called Dave to ask for coaching. A nice twist in the tail of another Blewbury tournament managed seamlessly by the indefatigable Carol J.
Bravo Blewbury. Having lost the venue toss for their semi final against York in the SC Interclub National tournament, the team was determined to make the long journey pay off. As they did, with a convincing 8-3 victory.
The format is 10 singles and a doubles over three rounds. Captain Joe led the charge with three singles wins; he kept to basics to finish ahead of his oppo each time so no peels were required. Brian and Steve also starred with two singles wines each. Steve teamed up with Andrew Petit to take the doubles.
Nottingham and Southport will contest the other semi final to decide who will meet Blewbury in the final. This will be held at a neutral venue, probably in September.
After last week’s triumph against Ryde, Blewbury’s top GC team notched up another cliffhanger victory over Phyllis Court in the A level Open League. By lunchtime on a glorious sunny day, David Grinstead and David Vincent had scored in the best of three game format. With captain John Garnett and Peter Allan missing out in close contests, the teams were balanced on 2 wins apiece.
in the afternoon, the Davids struck again, with John adding the point that secured a 5-3 victory. The A league matches were slow to get under way, but are making up for it with dynamic progress.. Keep it up guys…
The Blewbury AC Advanced weekend tournament was held on 13-14 July and was graced by a selection of top players – five of the nine had minus handicaps, and three were minus 2. (Minus 3 is the lowest AC handicap that exists.)
Sophie McGlen, the manager, organised the tournament as a Swiss, which keeps the play moving along at a good pace. The weather was good, and the tournament was played in a great spirit.
As always, the players greatly enjoyed the lunch, provided on this occasion by Minty. We were especially keen to discover what the various fruits were in the dessert on the first day. They looked very exotic.
With such a high-class field I was expecting plenty of triple peels to be completed. In fact there were ten in the 27 games played, with several other attempts. However, I quickly realised that I had underestimated the top players. My first game was against Debbie Lines (the current women’s world champion). Debbie hit in and was well into a solid break when I realised that the balls were not where I expected them to be. Debbie was setting up to do a sextuple peel! Debbie had made six hoops, cross-wired my balls at hoop 1, and put her ball in the jaws of hoop 2 after placing her other ball north west of hoop 2. The idea is that I don’t get a lift with one of my balls, so I need to make a 25 yard roquet or run away and hide. While shooting and missing would give Debbie an even better position, running and hiding seemed that it would only delay the inevitable, so I tried the 25 yard shot – and hit! I now had a great position and I scored 9 hoops before making a leave. However, to no one’s surprise, Debbie hit in and won 26-9.
Other players attempted sextuples during the weekend, which is a testament to the abilities of the top players, and to the quality of our lawns. You don’t try doing a sextuple on a dodgy lawn. As the tournament was drawing to a close no one had succeeded in doing a sextuple peel, but in her last game, Debbie had completed five of the necessary peels and was carefully lining up her final peel. Everyone was watching by this time. Unfortunately the final peel failed, but Debbie still won the game.
At the conclusion of play, Debbie and Robin Brown were the only players to have lost one game each. Debbie had won one more game, but that was by dint of having played one more game than Robin. It was agreed that the fairest thing to do was that tournament should be decided by what I know as a Nottingham tie-break, where the players in contention play a two-ball break starting from corner 4 and going for hoop 4, then hoop 5, and so on. It is important that the player going second does not know how many hoops the first player has scored, so Robin went first, with Debbie around the corner, admiring our water butt. My experience of these tie breaks is that three hoops is a typical score and four hoops is likely to be a winning score. Not so for Robin and Debbie. Robin made 16 hoops on his two-ball break – a stupendous number. While Debbie did not know how many hoops Robin had made, she was surely conscious that it had taken quite a while. Debbie made six hoops, which is a great score, but a fewer than 16.
