by John Davis at Nottingham Croquet Club [^] -> bottom
26 Sep 2018 (The Short Croquet Inter-Club Trophy)
York travelled to Nottingham for the first semi-final of the CA's Short Croquet Inter-Club competition. The Indian summer provided very pleasant playing conditions and Charlie, Nottingham's groundsman, had done a wonderful job of preparing four half-sized lawns. The York team arrived with captain Alison Larard as designated driver.
After a welcoming tea or coffee, play got under way. The morning session featured Mark Lansdale (with a SC handicap of 4) & Paul McGuire (7) against Alison Larard (7) & Carolyn Kirk (10) and two games of singles: Ellen Gee (7) v Denise Foster (10) and Mike Hedge (8) v William Bosanquet (8). Mark & Paul won the doubles fairly easily but the singles were much tighter, with narrow victories for Ellen and William.
So 2-1 to Nottingham at lunch. Excellent fare provided by Bob Thompson was followed by two sessions of pre-drawn singles. The first session was split 2-2 with victories for Ellen and Mike for the hosts and Alison and William for the visitors. All to play for in the final session. After much serious ebb and flow with either result possible, the hosts finally took all four games. The highlight was a +1 golden hoop in extra time for Paul against Carolyn, who had only started playing croquet in June. This was one of those matches that was a lot closer than the final score suggests. Nottingham now play Penrith in the final.
With three sessions of 75 minute, full-bisque games on short lawns, this competition is an excellent introduction to competitive croquet for newcomers to the game, and deserves to attract a bigger field of entrants next season.
by Ian Burridge at Phyllis Court [^] -> bottom
22 Sep 2018 (Golf Croquet Inter-Club)
Two first time finalists contested this year's Golf Croquet Inter-Club Final. Nottingham offered to play the match at Phyllis Court who arranged an excellent day with a couple of dozen spectators braving the inclement weather. Nottingham have managed to field the same team in each round of the competition, Ian Burridge, Richard Bilton, James Death and Euan Burridge. Phyllis Court were represented by Charlie Von Schmieder, Raouf Allim, Chris Roberts and Roger Goldring.
Nottingham got off to a good start convincingly won the doubles. Meanwhile James Death had won a long first game against Roger Goldring and Euan Burridge and Chris Roberts we're one game each after Chris stole the 1st game at hoop 13. Richard Bilton took the opportunity to get a single banked "aftrenoon" game in against Raouf Allim before lunch and after a shaky start the recent Ascot Cup winner found his form and took a 1-0 lead into lunch. James finally overcame Roger after a 2hr 15min 2 game marathon. Whilst the others enjoyed an excellent lunch Chris Roberts finally overcame Euan's resistance in game 3 to give Phyllis Court hope.
The rain continued unabated after lunch and Ian Burridge quickly won his first game against Charlie von Schmieder sealing it with a 5 yard jump shot at hoop 10. Richard wrapped his match up with some spectacular hoop running in game 2 including hoop 6 from between 3 and 4 followed by hoop 7 with its next shot. Euan put up little resistance after Roger ran hoops 2 and 4 from 25 yards in game 1 and the match was still in the balance at 3-2 to Nottingham. Meanwhile James had take the first game against Chris. Charlie looked as though he would cause an upset in his second against Ian when he took a 6-5 lead but a careless positional shot allowed Ian to flick to 13 and secure the match and the title for Nottingham a few shots later.
Quiller Barrett performed the prize giving before the spectators left to find somewhere dry and warm. All that was left was for James to finish his match in the worst rain of the day, winning in two to make the final score 5-2 to Nottingham.
Full results can be found on Croquet Scores:
croquetscores.com/2018/gc/ca-inter-club-final-phyllis-court-vs-nottingham
