Club

Croquet

Wrest Park

Handicap tournament 18-20 May

The tournament provided further evidence regarding the decline in tournament attendance – there were only 14 entrants and six of these were Wrest Park members. Of the rest, Nick Evans and Mike Hills travelled down from Northampton, Ken Pickett and Wendy Spencer-Smith came up from Enfield. David Gillett is almost an honorary member, having relatives living close by, Heather Bennett made the journey from St Albans, Jonathan Toye from Downham Market and Kevin Ham all the way from Cardiff. Handicaps ranged from 20 to 0, with half the players on 3½ or fewer.

The lawns were in good condition, although one was still feeling the effects of all the recent rain and was left alone. The weather was grim throughout: cold and damp with the merest flicker of sun. There was a run on soup at lunchtime, and your reporter took to lacing his coffee with a tot of rum.

Heather (20) had been encouraged to enter the tournament after playing in the East Anglian Federation Champions Day event a month earlier. She lost her first game against manager Eric Audsley, who then took her to one side for some practical advice on how to best deploy her array of bisques. Just what was said remains unrecorded, but it obviously had the desired effect as she proceeded to win six of her seven remaining games, losing only to David Gillett and recording two scores of +22 and +26 in the process.

Impressive as this was, she was pipped as winner overall by club member David Marsh (3), who continued his good form of last season by winning seven of his eight games, his only loss being to Heather, and gaining yet another handicap reduction.

Time limits of 3¼ hours and shortened games for large aggregate handicaps, coupled with the easy pace and not too challenging hoops, meant that only one game went to time, in which Kevin Ham (4½) beat John Bevington (1) +3 – a game which, like quite a few others, featured a pegged-out ending. Geoff Strutt took this tactic to extremes in using several bisques to peel John through the last two hoops before pegging him out, winning +7 after John missed the pioneer at 1-back when set up with a 3-ball break. John was also involved in Wendy Spencer-Smith’s (16) only win after a run of narrow losses, when she got the first ball round with a few bisques and carried on to win +24.

In David and Heather’s wake were Nick, Kevin and David Gillett with five wins, John, Geoff and Rod Ashwell with four, Jon, Mike, Ken and Eric with three and George Collin with two. Our thanks to Vic Rees, Sally Marsh and club chairman Tim Brewer for keeping everyone fed and watered. There is another handicap tournament in September, and the weather can only get better.


© Wrest Park Croquet Club  

David Marsh and Heather Bennett