Club

Croquet

Wrest Park

Eastern Championship 27-29 July

Summer finally arrived the week before, so we were able to get the lawns in good order with new hoop holes and three cuts at the reduced height of 6.5mm, resulting in a speed of 11 Plummers as measured on Friday evening. Named after Dr Ian Plummer, this unit is the number of seconds it takes a ball to travel the length of the lawn. Anything below 10 might be regarded as slow, anything above 12 distinctly fast. Given that our lawns are usually quite slow, 11 Plummers is probably as fast as we could expect.

It turned out that although the players had been sent directions these had omitted to mention the various numbers for the gates, and with no-one available to act as escort they found themselves having to force an entrance through the hedge. Robert Wilkinson took things one step further, when, having been delayed by a thrown tread, he rang up asking for the postcode as his satnav had directed him to a nearby farm.

With only 13 entries manager David Maugham determined on best of five from the outset, with the use of super-advanced rules* optional. There were rolling time limits which only came into play once, but Lionel Tibble’s match against Richard Smith came close, lasting all day before Lionel won the decider at around 9pm. All the quarter finals were won in three games.

The semi-finals were more protracted. Ian and David both took an early 2-0 lead, but Keith and Nick pulled back to 2-2 at about the same time. As it was quite late some of us thought that they might finish off the next day, but they started the final game without further ado to leave George Collin, who had kindly offered to stay on, having to cycle home in the dark.

George arrived early on Sunday to cut lawn 4 for the final. Keith was 2-0 up and Richard Smith and Robert Wilkinson were engaged in the Plate final when heavy rain flooded the lawns making further play impossible. Although the sun reappeared it was always only going to be a temporary respite and play was abandoned. Richard and Robert shared the Plate, and Keith and David will be completing their match at a later date.

An indication of the standard of play is that 28 triples were completed in the 61 games played, 25 of them in the 44 games of the main event.

* For details of the super-advanced rules see Appendix 5 of the Regulations for Tournaments on the CA website. Games played to these rules are designated by a (1), (2) or (3) after the score, indicating which variation was used.


1st round

David Maugham bt Debbie Cornelius -16 +17stp +17tp +26

Gabrielle Higgins bt Ian Vincent +5 +8tp +26

Ian Lines bt Mark Ormerod -2 +5 +11T +17

Lionel Tibble bt Richard Smith -5 +11 -6tpo +8tp +16

Keith Aiton bt Robert Wilkinson +7 -23tp +10tpo +23tp (3)

Quarter final

Nick Mounfield bt Ailsa Lines +26 +21 +11

David Maugham bt Gabrielle Higgins +17tp +22tp +12tpo

Ian Lines bt Lionel Tibble +26tp +13 +20tp

Keith Aiton beat Andrew Gregory +23tp +26tp +16tp

Semi final

David Maugham bt Nick Mounfield +16 +11tp -26 -17tp +25tp

Keith Aiton bt Ian Lines -25tp -25tp +9 +24tp +26tp

Final

Keith Aiton leads David Maugham +13otp +25tp


Saturday lunch. Clockwise from the corner: Debbie Cornelius, David Maugham, Keith Aiton, Lionel Tibble, Ailsa Lines, Gabrielle Higgins and Nick Mounfield.

Girl power: Ailsa Lines and Debbie Cornelius take on Richard Smith and Robert Wilkinson in a game of gold croquet on Saturday evening.

David  Maugham and Nick Mounfield during their semi-final on Saturday. Ian Lines is in the background.

David Maugham and Keith Aiton each with one hand on the cup, and Robert Wilkinson and Richard Smith who shared the Plate.

© Wrest Park Croquet Club