Club

Croquet

Wrest Park

Advanced tournament 7-8 August

Most of the fifteen entrants who assembled on Saturday, on what turned out to be yet another warm and sunny weekend, were regular visitors, but we also welcomed back John Meads and Jonathan Wolfe after an absence of many years. John spent his first game against John Bevington trying to bully the hoops into submission, but they stood firm in their ground and for the most part rejected his advances.

Tom Anderson had offered to act as Fisherman’s Gate monitor to ensure everyone got in safely, and had the bye for the first round. He ended up being ready for a second game before others had finished their first, being disposed of in short order by Graham Gale +22TP. Graham managed nine games during the weekend, winning five and a handicap reduction.

The winner was Jonathan Hills
(-1½), who won seven of his eight games, his only loss being one of three games he played against Graham. He completed two triples, against Graham and Philip Windred (who also managed eight games, winning half of them). Nigel Polhill did the only other triple against Ian Mantle, who had four wins from six games, including a narrow +3 win against manager Rod Ashwell, and won the prize for the best performance in the higher handicap group.

Closest to Jonathan was Nick Mounfield, who lost his first game against Nigel but then proceeded to win the next five. His handicap went down from 2½ to 1½ and is bound to fall further.

Our thanks to Peter, Jaqueline, Judith, Hilary and Geoff for keeping us fed and watered. Players in July had suggested we stock some better beer, so we bought in some London Pride and Greene King IPA. All of this went; the Boddingtons remains on the shelf. Another example of the North - South divide?.

 

© Wrest Park Croquet Club  

Jonathan Hills in play on Sunday morning.