Author: Jon Diamond

A wet day at Southwick on Sunday 8th August greeted 14 teams for Teams day. Heavy morning showers caused us to suspend play after the first two sessions and lunch was bought forward. The rains eased by early afternoon and play resumed.  So we were able to complete both the doubles and singles losing just one session to the bad weather. My congratulations to everyone for enduring such atrocious conditions.

The Doubles trophy was won by Reigate Priory who beat Surbiton in the final by 7-4. The losing semi-finalists were West Worthing and Littlehampton.

The Singles trophy was a very close affair. Cheam 1 had been leading throughout the competition only to be caught by Sussex County 1, Chichester, and Rottingdean. These the three clubs shared 2nd place. Guildford overtook all of these in the last session to win the trophy.

Many congratulations to the winners.

Roger Sutton

One of the big events in the federation calendar was held at Southwick on 14th July. Not sure Bastille Day was of significance but……………………!

We were very fortunate with the weather and were pleased to welcome 12 teams of ladies with 4-6 players. A Bar-b-q lunch was available as were teas/coffees and afternoon cake. It was almost ‘back to the old days’ before Covid!

The format was the usual one devised by Bill Arliss who created and ran the original tournament. There were 6 rounds, randomly drawn, with 3 games per round. These made up the ‘match’ but individual wins were also recorded. There were 2 singles and one doubles in each ‘match’. All handicap play. Extra turns came into play of course!

There were many close games and indeed the whole competition was not decided until the last round.

The winners of the impressive trophy were Surbiton who won 5 ‘matches’ with 13 games won, and 2nd place went to Guildford who also won 5 ‘matches’ but had won only 11 games! A very good ending to the day. Reigate Priory were 3rd, Chichester 4th, Rottingdean 5th and Sussex 1 were 6th. The others I will not mention! Well done everyone and the spirit of the day was very friendly and it was fun! Just as it should be.

It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces and to welcome some new ones. The GC Day is a great way to begin a competitive career.

One thing – clubs need to ensure their ‘high bisquers’ know how to use their ‘extra turns’ effectively! It is all part of the learning curve. I learned that we must have a klaxon for timings in future!

Many thanks to all who helped make it such a marvellous day – Linda Gavigan who assisted me in managing and kept people on the move and in order, Mike Oulton who was referee of the tournament, Jackie who assisted him when she was not playing, and of course Jonathan and Chrissy Isaacs who did all the catering. Thanks to Clive Hayton and Sandra Towner who helped get everything ready and of course the groundsman and his team who provide such excellent lawns.

Phew – over for this year. A klaxon for next year! Happy memories.

I hope the clubs will all return next season and hopefully will be joined by a couple more.

Frances Low

After a year’s gap because of the pandemic, the flagship tournament of the South East Federation returned albeit with slightly reduced numbers to allow for the restrictions that were still in place.

The tournament was divided into three divisions with Division 1 being played at Sussex County over the weekend of the 19th/20th June. On the same day Division 2 North was played at Surbiton and Division 2 South was played at Sussex County on 3rd/4th July.

For Division 1 there were some very close fought battles, but in the end the final was contested between Dulwich and Sussex County 2. With games standing at one all it came down to a singles game to win the match and the Tournament. Needless to say this game went to the 13th hoop with Dulwich coming out as the eventual winners. Ryde 1 was in third place and East Dorset in 4th.

Meanwhile up in Surbiton six teams were battling it out for the Division 2 North trophy. The final was contested between Surbiton and Cheam 1 with Surbiton coming out as the winners 2 games to 1. Reigate was in third place and Ryde 2 in fourth.

After a couple of weeks breather seven teams met to compete for the Division 2 South competition. This time, as there were seven teams, there was a different format with teams playing in blocks with no final. All teams had to play each other twice over the weekend. Eventually it came down to a tussle between Littlehampton and Rottingdean 1.
Rottingdean had to beat their fellow players from Rottingdean 2 to claim an outright win but they were beaten. So on 9 matches each the tie-break came down to games won, so Littlehampton triumphed by 25 games to 24 for Rottingdean. It could not have been closer. Sussex County 3 were third and West Worthing fourth.

Thanks to Jonathan Isaacs for organising the overall tournament which was a challenge in its own right, and to Andrew Stewart, Andy Dibben and Jonathan for running the events on the day.

Hopefully next year some normality will return and we will welcome more teams to compete in this popular event.

Andrew Stewart

The first Ladies AC Day since 2018 took place at Southwick on 7th July.

Eight teams were represented : Sussex 1, Sussex 2, Rother Valley, Rottingdean, Purley Berries, Queen Bees, Merton and a SECF team. The SECF team was assembled as in the end Surbiton couldn’t quite raise a team. Many thanks to those who played for the SECF team.

Each team consisted of two to four ladies of any handicap. There were 4 rounds drawn at random – two of 2 singles and two of doubles. Points were awarded for win, pegged out win and peels. All games were 14 point handicap matches with a time limit of 1.5 hours.

There were some extra singles available for teams who had more than 2 players – if they wanted more play! The results were then arranged in percentage order, if necessary.

A lot of the games did peg out, particularly the singles but the doubles tended to go to time!

Sussex 1 were clear winners with 21 points. The nearest challengers being Queen Bees, Rother Valley and Merton. Congratulations to Sussex 1 – Chrissie Merrington and Pam Gooders. Chrissie played brilliantly and won all her games and got a handicap reduction to 10!!

Well done everyone and the Federation is grateful for your support in this event.

Cliff Jones kindly presented the Trophy to the winners – he had arrived for an Academy course the next day!

Thanks as ever to Southwick for the wonderful lawns, to Chris Constable who was ROT (Referee of the Tournament), and to myself for sorting out socially distanced tea/coffee, biscuits and afternoon cake!

It was a lovely day and so pleasing to catch up with old friends and see familiar faces.

Please can more SECF teams enter next year. We cannot rely on the same players year after year. I am sure many more clubs could provide at least two AC lady players.

Ideas for next year: well maybe short court AC, full bisque singles games, alternate stroke doubles??

It is up to you to contact me if you have ideas, and please try to participate in 2022!

Frances Low (Manager)

frances.low@ntlworld.com

Five teams from Canterbury, Medway, Ramsgate, Surbiton and Tunbridge Wells gathered at 9.30am on Sunday 6^th June under a beautiful clear blue sky to contest the one ball extravaganza at Canterbury CC.

Having consumed the muffins and coffee on offer, play started in earnest. At lunchtime after three rounds Canterbury, Medway and Surbiton were leading with two wins apiece and the stage was set for a competitive afternoon.

The food was very well received by all, the wine flowed and such was the convivial conversation that it was with great difficulty that we managed to persuade the contestants to resume play!

The fourth round resulted in Canterbury nosing ahead of the others, but it was still possible for Medway or Surbiton to taste victory after the fifth round.

In this last round Canterbury beat Medway to maintain an unbeaten record and receive the trophy with “bubbly” and generous applause.

The longest break prize was presented to Charlie Martin from Ramsgate.

On behalf of the contestants Trevor Longman from Ramsgate thanked Canterbury for their organisation of the tournament and remarked how much everybody had enjoyed the day.