by Julie Horsley at Budleigh Salterton [^] -> bottom
21st July (Level-Play Tournaments)

 

Players found conditions this year challenging with the lawns and hoops, that some games where going to 4 hours. Maybe the sun and heat had something to do with it. So unusually the Manager had to impose time limits on Blocks A and B on the last day in order to finish the tournament at a reasonable time for players to travel home.

On Saturday morning there was no clear winner in most blocks and there were some very close finishes this year.

On Saturday morning In A block for the Trevor Williams Cup, Simon Hathrell, Tim Jolliff and Jonathan Lamb were all on 5 wins with all having to play each other. In the first game Simon beat Jonathan , but lost to Tim in the second, giving him 6 wins. Tim won his first 2 games giving him 7 wins. Jonathan Lamb was now out of the running having lost his first 2 games.

In the meantime Jim Field on 4 wins at the start of the day was now on 5 and playing Simon in their last game, which he won to give him 6 wins and second place. In his last game Tim beat Jonathan to give him 8 wins.

End results Tim Jolliff 8/9, Jim Field 6/9, Simon Hathrell 6/9 Jonathan Lamb 5/9 Jonathan Wolfe 5/9. Dave Mundy. Dave Gunn and Peter Moore all 3/9, David Wise and Richard Wood 2/9

In B block there were 4 with 4 wins each on Saturday morning – Stephen Custance-Baker, Peter Nelson, Roger Mills and Bob Thomson. Stephen and Bob won both their games, Roger lost both his and Peter won 1 lost 1 so tie between Stephen and Bob, each with 6/7 wins, but earlier Bob has beaten Stephen so won the Colin Hemming Cup.

In Block C John Dawson had a clean sweep winning all 7 games so winning the de-Ansorena Cup, runner-up was Mike Taylor with 5/7 wins.

In Block D the last game would determine who won the Nigel Graves Trophy as both Brian Shorney and Richard Peperell were both on 4/6 wins with Richard on his Bye and Brian to play. Brian managed to win with 5/6.

In E Block Judith Moore won the small silver goblet with 4/5 wins, Sam Watts, Pat Jackson and Rosemary Bradshaw all on 3/5.

The Handicap singles for the Quiller Cup was won for the second year running by Brian Shorney with runner-up Richard Jackson. Brian was lucky to win it again as he only entered on the Monday saying he had thought he had entered as last years' winner.

The consolation event was won by Bob Thompson who having been knocked out in round 2 by Tim Jolliff went on to win all his remaining games.

The Doubles final was between David Wise/Gerald Osborne-Burke and Philip Harris/Susan Rogers with Philip and Susan winning.

There was a tie for the consolation event between Dave Mundy/Tony Bower and Tim Jolliff/Jonathan Wolfe.

The Fastest games was – as usual – won by Jim Field.

Peter Death on behalf of the CA presented the trophies and thanked everyone for all the effort they had put into making the tournament happen.

by Richard Bilton at Nottingham [^] -> bottom
19th July (Golf Croquet)

 

A strong field of 21 players – 10 on handicap 3 or 4 and one on 2 – came to Nottingham to compete in our 12th GC B Level Tournament. There were 4 blocks of 6 and the top two from each would progress to a knockout, meaning a total of 8 games for the winner. The day before the tournament and too late to redraw the blocks, three people withdrew, but luckily from different blocks, so one person from three blocks had to sit a round out.

Play got underway at 9:30, the first three rounds finishing with no close games at 12pm for lunch, kindly prepared by Ian Vincent. At this stage, 2 people from three blocks and one person from the other had won 2 games; Andrea Huxley had won three games.

After all of the block games, the top performing player from three blocks hadn't lost a game, and Roger Stroud made the top spot in his block though narrowly losing 6-7 to Gavin Taylor. Second place in three of the blocks won 3 games and Andrea Widdison got through on 2 wins due to Jane Tewson going to hoop 13 in all of her block games but only winning one of them.

All of the Quarter Final encounters went to hoop 12 or 13, Louise Taylor beat husband Gavin 7-6 and Noel Gill also won 7-6, while both Andreas won their matches 7-5. Before the Semi Finals, Louise Taylor announced that she didn't want to go any further in the knockout and gave Andrea Huxley a straight run to the Final. Meanwhile, Noel had another close win, scraping through a very tightly contested match against Andrea Widdison 7-6.

Louise, having dropped out, gave Andrea Widdison an automatic 3rd place. After two very close rounds in the knockout, the Final began just before 7pm, but with plenty of light and spectators remaining. Both players battled for the first hoop, which Andrea eventually ran. Hoop 2 was considerably quicker but despite a great 14-yard clearance by Andrea at hoop 3, a nice jump by Noel and a slightly over hit approach to hoop 4 which trickled through, soon put him into a 3-1 lead. There was some good hitting from both players at the middle hoops but they both went to Noel to put him 4 clear. After this, it seemed as though Andrea had lost something, she managed to force a mistake from her opponent and run an angled hoop 7 to get back to 2-5, and after Noel lost control of a clearance and the hoop at 8, the comeback was on, but Andrea's concentration had been affected and Noel was soon back in. At 2-6 down, Andrea had nothing to lose and played some good clearances at hoop 9, but with his opponent's balls on the south boundary, and his red in the jaw, Noel took the match 7-2. Noel Gill won his first B Level tournament at Nottingham to qualify for the National Final at Camerton & Peasedown in October.

Results on www.croquetscores.com