Club

Croquet

Wrest Park

Mary Rose

24 June    v Cheltenham (home)     Lost 2-5

Bryan Harral (1) and John Bevington (1) lost to Andrew Hope (0) and Paul Watson (½) -23TP (H)

George Collin (2) beat Graham Roberts (2) +7T

Terry Mahoney (2) lost to Alwen Bowker (2) -2

Bryan Harral lost to Andrew Hope -3

John Bevington lost to Paul Watson -7

George Collin beat Alwen Bowker +10

Terry Mahoney lost to Graham Roberts -10

Report by John Bevington

3¼ hour time limits were agreed as the Cheltenham team wanted to avoid a potential late finish. This proved totally unnecessary in the doubles, as after Paul went to 4-back Andrew started with a perfect stop shot approach to hoop 1 and completed a triple peel to win the game in less than one and a half hours. Anyone thinking this unusual for a Mary Rose match should be reminded that thirty years ago Andrew, with whom there was an interview in a recent issue of the Croquet Gazette, was a member of the winning GB MacRobertson Shield team. Due to the early finish we started the singles, while on the other lawn Terry lost narrowly but George won on time to redress the balance.

Sharman Harral provided an excellent lunch with chili, rice and freshly made apple pie before we continued. Bryan was looking good and had got to peg and penult when he missed a shot at Andrew’s balls on the boundary. Andrew went round, pegged him out and carried on to win. John then missed a short shot when set to go to the peg and never hit in again. The other two games divided to leave Cheltenham winners by five games to two.


28 April    v Newport (home)     Won 7-0

Bryan Harral (1) and John Bevington (1) beat Andrew Gregory (1) and Jim Potter (2½) +11

George Collin (1½) beat Arthur Flutter (7) +8

Terry Mahoney (2) beat Chris van Essen (4) +23

Bryan Harral beat Andrew Gregory +7

John Bevington beat Jim Potter +22

George Collin beat Chris van Essen +6

Terry Mahoney beat Arthur Flutter +18

Report by John Bevington

Newport were unable to field their best team as Mike Porter had to fulfil a family engagement, so we had an advantage from the start. The weather was foul, and the corner 4 area of lawn 2 made it unplayable so games were switched to lawn 6. Sharman Harral restored our spirits with steaming plates of chili for lunch before the afternoon games. Bryan went to 4-back on the fourth turn and held on to beat Andrew, Jim Potter’s hitting-in deserted him and George and Terry continued where they had left off to give us a clean sweep and the prospect of a home game against Cheltenham in the next round.



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