© Wrest Park Croquet Club  

Inter County Championship 28-31 May

Bryan Harral in play on lawn 10 against Oxford on Saturday morning. The game may have been the only one to finish before the rain fell.

Ox

Be

Yo

Wi

Do

Wa

Gl

Ke

Ha

Su

Jon Watson (-1)

David Marsh (1)

+ 13

- 1T

- 9

- 3T

+ 19

-19T

- 10

+ 15

+2T

+ 1

Bryan Harral (-½)

John Bevington (1)

+ 26

- 8

- 7T

+ 2T

- 1T

- 10

- 3T

+ 15

-1T

- 1T

George Collin (0)

Tim Brewer (2½)

+ 1T

- 22

+10T

+ 2T

+ 8T

- 24

- 4T

+ 22

+8T

- 3T

Saturday started with a win against Oxford, but the results don’t tell the full story. Oxford’s third pair were a man short, so Dayal Gunasekara had to play with a dead ball. This led to a point of law when he claimed a lift with the dead ball which had been put in the jaws of a hoop by George, and he was still in with a chance when he put the croqueted ball off the lawn when trying to maximise the length of the opponent’s shot.

The morning games were interrupted by rain which left the lawns flooded, and the delay led to a late finish after losses to Berkshire and Yorkshire.

Sunday was fine and sunny and resulted in wins against Wiltshire and the previously unbeaten Dorset, which would have been 3-0 but for a narrow loss by 1 for Bryan and John. We were back down to earth with a bump on Monday morning, being well beaten by Warwickshire, but after losing to Gloucestershire recovered with a 3-0 against Kent, pegging out in all three games.


Tuesday began with a wet drive to Eastbourne, but although the rain stopped fairly early there was little respite from a strong wind which went on for most of the day. A tight win against Hampshire was followed by an even tighter loss against Suffolk, when, after Bryan and John had had their second -1 defeat of the day, Jon Watson hit in and ran rover from about 10 yards to peg out win +1.

So, safe for another year, but no room for complacency. The standard creeps up all the time - it was noticeable that on more than one occasion a failure at 2-back or 4-back would be followed by an opposition turn to 4-back or peg, and a healthy lead was quickly reduced to parity or worse.

Man in black: Jon Watson. Men in shed: David Marsh, George Collin, Tim Brewer.

Water, water everywhere.

Division 1


Division 2


P

W

Games



P

W

Games

Notts

10

7

21


Yorkshire (P)

10

9

20

Surrey (bt Lanc)

10

7

19


Gloucs (P)

10

8

22

Lancashire

10

7

19


Berks (P)

10

6

20

Essex

10

7

17


Dorset

10

6

18

Cheshire

10

6

19


Suffolk

10

6

13

Herts

10

6

16


Bedfordshire

10

5

14

Somerset

10

5

15


Hampshire

10

4

15

Middlesex

10

5

13


Oxfordshire

10

4

11

Sussex (R)

10

3

12


Warwickshire

10

3

12

Glamorgan (R)

10

2

7


Wiltshire

10

2

11

Channel I (R)

10

0

7


Kent

10

2

9

After the ignominy of last year’s wooden spoon, and after having regained our place by beating Shropshire in the playoff, Bedfordshire finished in a respectable mid-table position in Division 2. Team captain Bryan Harral followed the Bedfordshire motto of “Constant Be” and the same pairings played throughout.

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