2015 Tournament Reports

AC Doubles Weekend at Southwick 16/17 May

It was very sorry to note that the swing away from competitive Association Croquet continues and we were left with only seven teams to contest this years AC Doubles weekend. Old regulars such as Medway, Caterham and Ember were unable to raise a team. Nevertheless the seven teams managed to provide some excellent croquet with some nail biting finishes. We saw the effects of pressure in one match with at least six misses at pegouts or roquets of 4 foot and less any of which would have given the player the match. The weather remained fine and sunny for all the tournament and we were one of the first users of the three refurbished lawns. They were still slightly slow at present but a good pointer to what we can expect with a further twelve months growth.

The event was played as a five round Swiss and the format produced a clear winner in Purley Bury with both pairs only dripping one game each over the weekend. The next three places were not so clear with three teams on six wins and having to be separated by net points.

Team
Wins
Points
Position
Purley Bury
8
64
1
Guildford & Godalming
6
37
2
Reigate Priory
6
-1
3
Sussex County A
6
-3
4
Ramsgate
4
-24
5
Sussex County B
3
-26
6
Rother Valley
2
-47
7

 

Purley Bury Captain, Ron
Sherwin, receives the trophy from SECF Chairman Bill
Arliss
The winning Purley Bury
team

Ladies Day

It was on the hottest day of the year that one of the hottest tournaments in the SE Federation, Ladies Day, was held at Southwick. Eight teams entered and shortly before 10 a.m Rats sniffed out Berries, Queen Bees buzzed around Wenches and Smarties sized up to Sizzlers as opponents were found and bisques collected. The first two rounds were 18 points and the third 14 points, all a mixture of singles and doubles, but only 10 out of the 36 games ended in a peg out. The most spectacular of these was by a Queen Bee who hit her remaining ball from corner to peg in extra time.

The bell, expertly rung by a retired Headteacher, announced that it was time for lunch and the services of Davina/David Gately behind the bar. He/she was heavily bewigged and gaudily dressed in black trunks, stockings and suspenders topped by a very lacy orange tunic bought the day before at Tesco’s. “It is a bit short” she admitted. After a very tasty lunch (prepared and served by male members of the Club) the ladies returned to their allotted courts for round two. It was by now getting hot and those with shade were envied by those who had to make do with umbrellas and extra jugs of water.. The Referee, Don Mears, had to remind one or two players that they were not allowed to play in bare feet. This sparked off a debate as to whether this was a CA or Club ruling. Fortunately there were no limitations on the style of head gear.

The final bell was rung at 6 pm and tired players gathered to hear Pauline read out the results. In third place were the Surbiton Smarties with 5 wins and 100 hoops; in second were the Woking Wenches with 6 wins and 93 hoops and in first place were the Sussex Sizzlers with 8 wins and 102 hoops. Cheers all round.

Thanks were given to Pauline Davey who so expertly organised the day, and to the many helpers from Sussex CCC, including Davina still tottering on high heels. Congratulations went to five players whose handicap had come down: Liz Farrow to 4, Penny Hinton to 9, Elizabeth McKenzie-Gray to 9, Janet Hopcroft to 14 and Irmgard Tonolo to 16.

Final thoughts as the ladies got into hot cars:

“Well organised, good lunch, very hospitable……..but I played very badly.”

“Lawns brilliant, everyone friendly and chatty, good carrot cake.”

“Lawn 3 was amazing to play on, if you missed a roquet it was your fault.”

“Lovely place, lovely people, lovely lunch. See you next year.”

Report by Janet Overell

The Sussex Sizzlers

Southern Challenge

This is the fourth staging of this event and I feel one can now say that it is becoming well established. It was very pleasing to see two first time entries this year in the second division as development of competitive play is the primary aim of the second division event. From reports I have received both newcomers totally enjoyed them selves and want to be back next year. With this kind of support I would hope that we can attract further teams in future years but it will means some rethinking as we are at the absolute limit of entries for the number of lawns available at Surbiton and only two below maximum at Southwick. I will therefore be calling for provisional entries early in 2016 so that we have time to plan any extension of the competition if required. Please talk over your provisional entry for next year whist you are still all together playing this year. This year we did allow two teams to be entered from one club but second teams will have no priority if there are sufficient individual entries.

In previous years we have held both divisions on the same weekend but as Surbiton were hosting the AC Open Championship on our normal date, we fitted the second division in a week earlier. My thanks to Michael Hague for managing the second division event

Bill Arliss, Overall Manager

Second Division

The first stage of the event was an all play all format with each match being one doubles and two singles games. At the end of this section, the clubs were ranked in order of match wins with individual game wins being used as a decider in the event of equal match wins. The clubs were then then grouped in ranked pairs. Each pair played each other twice but with each player’s singles and doubles roles reversed in the second match.

Eight teams competed in Div 2 this year using all seven of the Surbiton courts. The host club provided its usual five star playing conditions and catering although its croquet team did not match such a rating apart for its consistency in coming last yet again. New to the tournament were Rottingdean and Cheam. The latter club has one court and has been in existence for only three years. It produced a highly commendable second place, runner up to Reigate Priory. Both teams won 6 of their 7 matches in the preliminary rounds but Reigate who came second in the previous two annual tournaments, saw off Cheam 2-0 in the final two rounds played against each other.

Handicap cards were checked early in the competition. About 15% were found to be incorrectly made out in one way or another, a great improvement on last year. There were several handicap changes made, two of them from the same club at a very early stage of the tournament.

Three referees officiated on both days, Ian Cobbold, Martin Peacock and Jason Carley, acting as supervising referees. They were called on or intervened about 50 times each over the two days awarding about 20 to 25 faults each referee. The players appreciated being refereed and most benefited from improving their otherwise limitedl understanding of the rules of golf croquet!

55 players took part this season with handicaps ranging from 3 to 12 and averaging 7.3. Only 1 in 10 matches used the whole hour allocated for each game but the generous time allowed enabled team captains to sort out their teams and the paperwork and for individuals to take a short break. The later start at 10am on each day with three rounds before lunch was a much appreciated amendment to the original tournament instruction.

THE FINAL PLACINGS
CLUB
POSITION
Reigate Priory
Winner
Cheam
2nd
Merton
3rd
Medway
4th
Purley Bury
5th
Rother Valley
6th
Rottingdean
7th
Surbiton
8th
The
winning Reigate Team
Host club
Chairman, George Noble presents the salver to
Reigate Captain
Photos by Martin Holland

First Division

This was staged a week later at Southwick and attracted ten entries. For the first time clubs were allowed to enter two teams and Southwick took advantage of this offer. The competition started with an all play all arrangement with each match comprising two singles and one doubles game with seven rounds scheduled for the Saturday. Last year’s second division winner Caterham took their place in the first division.

With marvellous weather conditions, the schedule was easy to follow and by lunch we were almost 30 minutes ahead although no time limits had been imposed. By tea time (5 rounds completed) the winner from the three previous stagings, Dulwich, was showing their usual form and had a 100% win record. However Sussex County, the previous runners up were struggling desparately with only one win to show. To make matters worse, the Sussex team 2 were matching Dulwich with a 100% record and even had a better games tally.

Someone must have made some rude remarks to the Sussex 1 Captain which induced some life back into the team as they won every game and match from thereon. Unfortunately for Sussex 1 it was too late.

At th end of the first nine rounds Dulwich were still in the lead with only one lost match and that was 0-3 against the Sussex 2 team Unfortunately the Sussex 2 team had two losses against Ryde and Sussex County 1 giving them seven wins from nine matches. Ryde and Winchester made up the top four places with 6 match wins and 17 games wins each.

The second four places were gained by Sussex County 1, Canterbury, Tunbridge Wells and Littlehampton. Each of these four teams then played a further round robin, the final result being decided by a combination of the results gained in both the first and second rounds. Only first round matches against other members of their individual quartets were use to determine the overall winner.

For your convenience in the table below, the matches considered are shown onf a yellow background. The bottom two team played each other twice reversing the singles and doubles roles in their last two round. The detailed results are shown below for both sections of the competition.

 
First Set of Matches, All play
All
Second Set of Matches, 2 blocks
of 4 and a pair
 
Rounds
     
Rounds
     
CLUB
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
WINS
GAMES
POSN
S1
S2
S3
WINS
GAMES
POSN
Dulwich
2-1
2-1
2-1
3-0
3-0
3-0
2-1
0-3
3-0
8
20
1
3-0
3-0
2-1
5
12
1
Sussex County 2
3-0
2-1
3-0
2-1
2-1
1-2
0-3
3-0
2-1
7
18
2
1-2
2-1
1-2
3
10
2
Ryde
1-2
1-2
2-1
2-1
3-0
2-1
3-0
3-0
0-3
6
17
4
2-1
0-3
1-2
2
7
3=
Winchester
2-1
3-0
1-2
2-1
1-2
2-1
3-0
2-1
1-2
6
17
3
0-3
1-2
2-1
2
7
3=
Sussex County 1
1-2
1-2
3-0
1-2
1=2
3-0
3-0
3-0
3-0
5
19
5
3-0
3-0
3-0
4
14
5
Canterbury
0-3
2-1
1-2
0-3
2-1
1-2
2-1
1-2
2-1
4
11
6
3-0
3-0
0-3
4
11
6
Tunbridge Wells
2-1
3-0
0-3
1-2
2-1
0-3
1-2
1-2
1-2
3
11
7
0-3
0-3
2-1
2
6
7
Littlehampton
1-2
1-2
0-3
2-1
0-3
2-1
0-3
0-3
2-1
3
8
8
0-3
0-3
1-2
2
5
8
West Worthing
2-1
0-3
1-2
1-2
1-2
1-2
0-3
0-3
0-3
1
6
10
3-0
3-0
*
2
7
9
Caterham
1-2
0-3
2-1
1-2
0-3
0-3
1-2
2-1
1-2
2
8
9
0-3
0-3
*
1
2
10

 

The
Dulwich Captain receives the Simon Carter Rose Bowl
The Dulwich wnning team
Photos by Ray Hall

 

4 – The Golf Croquet Handicap
Teams Day

Yet again we managed to pick an ideal summer’s day for this event, beautiful sunny weather but not too hot. Nineteen teams arrived to contest the singles and doubles trophies and there was some very fierce competition. In the morning doubles event, Angmering and Reigate Priory 2 both finished with four wins from four games but Angmering claimed victory with a slightly better net points. Well done Angmering, I believe this is your first time on the SECF Roll of Honour. In the afternoon singles event, Sussex County showed their strength in depth, with their team 2 notching up 10 wins from 12 games leaving Reigate Priory in second place with 8.5 wins. Two of the Sussex team got their just rewards with reductions in handicap. Thanks to Pam with the dreaded sound generator, we kept the programme exactly on schedule and Mike Oulton as wandering ref kept the tecnicalities in place

A few statistics on this years event. A total of 87 players registered themselves for play with an average handicap of 6.5 At the lower end we had one 1, three 2’s and seven 3’s whilst at the upper end we had five 10’s and two 11’s. It was the 22nd staging of this event and I have had the pleasure of managing the last fifteen since we moved it to Southwick to allow it to grow. Several times recently we have reached our maximum of 22 which is limited by the lawns available. Our first Soutwick staging attracted 12 entries.

Bill Arliss
Manager

Herewith the full results:

DOUBLES
 
SINGLES
CLUB
PLAYED
WON
POINTS
POSITION
CLUB
PLAYED
WON
POINTS
POSITION9
Angmering
4
4
14
1
Sussex 2
12
10
21
1
Reigate Priory 2
4
4
10
2
Reigate Priory 2
12
8.5
17
2
Sussex 1
4
3
13
3

Tunbridge Wells 2

12
8
16
3
Reigate Priory 1
4
3
9
4
Canterbury
12
8
11
4
Tunbridge Wells 2
4
3
6
5
Guildford & Godalming
12
7
10
5
Tunbridge Wells 1
4
3
-2
6
Dulwich
12
7
5
6
Rottingdean 2
4
2
2
7
Cheam
12
7
-1
7
Canterbury
4
2
0
8=
Rottingdean 1
12
6
1
8
Cheam
4
2
0
8=
Littlehampton 1
12
6
-6
9=
Preston
4
2
-7
10
Rottingdean 2
12
6
-6
9=
Dulwich
4
1.5
1
11
Worthing
12
6
-9
11
Worthing
4
1.5
-7
12
Littlehampton 2
12
5.5
-3
12
Rottingdean 1
4
1
0
13
Sussex 1
12
5
5
13
Rother Valley
4
1
-5
14
Reigate Priory 1
12
5
-2
14
Littlehampton 2
4
1
-6
15
Tunbridge Wells 1
12
5
-6
15
Guildford & Godalming
4
1
-6
16
Preston
12
4.5
-3
16
West Worthing
4
1
-7
17
West Worthing
12
4
-11
17
Sussex 2
4
1
-7
18
Rother Valley
12
3
-17
18
Littlehampton 1
4
1
-8
19
Angmering
12
2.5
-22
19

 

The victorious Sussex Singles team

Photo by Clive Hayton