Another win for our Federation GC R League team

Our SCCC Team followed up their first GC Level Play Restricted League win. with another good 6-1 home win over Littlehampton (Friday 20 Aug).

The team - Tony Jolly (2), David King (3), Frances Low (5) & Phil Harrison (6) - led 3-0 at the lunch break, with Frances and Phil each winning their best of three singles matches,, while Tony & David gained a very hard fought 7-6, 7-6 win over Cathy Kirkby (2) & Robyn Clark (3) . After lunch three more singles wins, secured a good victory.

Well done to Phil, winning both his matches 2-0, bringing his handicap down as a result.

David King

(With apologies from the Webmaster for the late publication of his report)

Two groups of 6 players - handicap and advanced - played in pleasant weather this Friday. Groundsman Ben and his team had cut that morning and set the hoops for the GC Eights this weekend, so the lawns were fast and the hoops challenging.

Handicap Competition

In the handicap competition three players stood out from the rest with 4 wins in five games. As they had all lost one game to each other the winner was decided on net hoops. Congratulations to Robin Wootton.

Advanced Competition

There was no difficulty in deciding the winner of the advanced competition as Jonathan Isaacs won all his games!

All in all, an enjoyable day's croquet. Thanks very much to Frances for managing the competitions for the Club.

Winter local and members only competition program published

Details are now on the website of the Winter Competitive Program for 2021-2022.

Local competitions are open to all croquet players in the area (eg members of local SECF clubs) and SCCC club members of course. The 1 day competitions sidebar has the dates and details.

Three members-only competitions are taking place: A GC Drawn Pairs Competition and two GC level play doubles competitions in separate divisions with joint minimum handicap limits. Entry is on the Internal Competition Entry Form and you can see all entries in the Winter Competitions page.

Please note all these new competitions will be 'Pay on the Day'.

Sussex takes 3rd place in GC Inter Counties to retain place in 1st Division

On the weekend of the 21st/22nd Sussex hosted division 1 of this year’s GC inter counties.
For the benefit of newer club members let me explain a little about the format of the event. The team which I as organiser and captain select, can be made up from any player who meets the eligibility criteria, not necessarily a member of our Sussex County club.
This year I selected Liz Farrow and Morgan Case of Sussex County along with Peter Dowd of Compton to join me in the Counties team.
Another of our members, Ian Cobbold was invited and played for the Surrey team (he has dual eligibility).

Division one comprised of twelve teams meaning that eleven rounds were needed spread over the two days. Each match between counties consisted of one doubles game and two singles.

How did we get on, well it was a tough start having to play the favourites in round one and losing to them 0-3. From this point as a former Prime Minister once said (it can only get better). At the end of Saturday we had played six counties and the match total was 3-3 but we believed that we had played most of the stronger teams at this point. Sunday was a different story and the wins began to accumulate and we gradually climbed up the leader board, in fact we beat the remaining five counties to finish with 8 wins.
This put us in third place on the table, the best result for Sussex in this annual competition for several years now.
We easily retained our division one status but the down side is that our division moves the Cheltenham next year!

The event was convincingly won by Nottinghamshire who won all their 11 matches and  whose team had a handicap total of -16, yes that’s right four minus 4 players. By contrast our total was -6.

I would like to echo the thanks given by Ian Burridge, Nottinghamshire’s captain who in his acceptance speech thanked the club for hosting, Jonathan Powe for managing and Linda’s team for the catering. He also commented that the hoop setting was the best he can remember in his visits to Southwick.
Finally I congratulate and thank my team for their performances and support.
More detailed results can be seen on croquetscores.

Report by Richard Brooks

High Bisque Competition win for Sussex Member

The Croquet Academy High Bisque Tournament 2021

It was lovely to host the AC High Bisque tournament again at Southwick after a gap due to Covid.
There were 12 entries but sadly someone had to pull out that morning. I am very grateful to Gerald Gooders and Celia Fastnedge from Littlehampton who kindly substituted at the last minute!
The 4 rounds in blocks were closely contested but the final ended up between Jon Colombo from SCCC and Caroline Alexander from Medway.
The final swung one way then the next but the more consistent play of Jon ensured he won the match. Congratulations to Jon who received the High Bisque Salver.
Well done Caroline and all the players who took part.
My grateful thanks to Morgan Case and Chrissie Merrington who assisted me, did some coaching, and gave much support to me and the players!! Their comments after each match were well received and useful.
High bisque players struggle to see the whole picture on a full lawn so maybe next year, we can have a short court supported tournament? The shots can be more precise and the tactics can be followed more easily. Accuracy and understanding are more likely.
Well done anyway to you all – we noticed many improvements during the day, and a better appreciation of the 4 ball break!!
Keep going – we want to see you again next year!
Frances Low (Manager)

Away Win at Dulwich for Sussex in Federation GC Match

A great season for the Sussex A team who completed 4 wins out of 4 by winning an away match at Dulwich 5-2 on Wednesday.
The teams were:-
Sussex A
Richard Brooks h/c -1 (captain)
Paul Castell -1
Liz Farrow 0
Robin Wootton 2

Dulwich 
Pierre Beaudry -4
Peter Hayden 2
Paul Newton 3
Penny Benge 3 (captain)

Sussex were leading by 3-0 at lunch with Paul & Richard beating Pierre & Peter 2-7, 7-3, 7-5 in the doubles.
Liz beat Penny 7-6, 6-7, 7-4 and Robin beat Paul 1-7, 7-3, 7-5 in the first two singles.
This meant to save the match Dulwich needed all four singles to be played in the afternoon.
They got off to a good start with Pierre’s win over Richard 7-5, 7-4 but shortly after this Sussex sealed victory with Paul beating Peter 7-6, 7-6 and Liz winning over Paul 7-2, 7-4.
Then there was quite a wait for the final game to finish, which ended in a win for Dulwich with Penny beating Robin 7-4, 4-7, 7-6.

As this is my last report of the season I would like to thank all of my team members for their help and support, that is Liz, Bob and Paul who joined me in three of the matches and Morgan who joined the team for two of the matches. Also a special thank you to Robin who came in at very short notice when Bob was hospitalised, which enabled us to field a full team for this match.

Report by Richard Brooks
 

Winning start to Club's CA GC Federations Shield campaign

Our SCCC Team of early risers opened their CA GC Federations Shield campaign in fine style with a 6 1/2 -1/2 win over Broadwas CC at High Wycombe on Saturday 14th August, after a first round bye.

The team - Tony Jolly (2), David King (3), Simon Ancell (7) & Linda Gavigan (8) - led 2-0 at the lunch break, with wins for the doubles and Simon's singles, while Linda was tied at 1 game all against her zero handicap opponent - each individual match is best of 3 games. After lunch our success continued, with each of our players winning their singles matches - a good all round team effort, managing to take advantage of, or defend, the extra turns, to round off an extremely good day. Well done to Simon, who has only been playing for a Covid restricted year, in his first away match.

David King

Colin Britt wins Sussex GC 0+ Series Competition

14 players contested this new event at Sussex County over the weekend of 14th-15th August. Playing conditions were largely good, if not exactly August weather, with only a little rain on the Sunday.

The competition was played as a single American Block.

From the start Colin was on track to win, though there were a some set-backs - an early loss to Stephen Custance-Baker and a more surprising one to Andrew Fall in a later round.

Meanwhile Neil Humphreys was also winning his matches with losses only to Bridget Goodman and Gavin Taylor until the final round.

With both on 10 wins final round saw Colin beat Neil Humphreys 7-6 to take the competiton. Third and fourth places were taken by Liz Farrow and Stephen Custance-Baker and all four take points forward in the 0+ Series.

Colin's 10 points in this event takes him to joint 4th place in the points table for the Series.

Colin also gains the new GC Gold Merit Award by virtue of winning this competition.

Full Results

GC Level Play 12th August

44 players took part in the GC doubles competition run on 12th August, played in three separate blocks. Thanks to Fiona Phillips for managaing the day.

Full Results

GC Level Play Singles Competition 5th August

This one-day competition was played in the usual three groups based on ability. Thanks to Roger for running it.