Sussex GC 2 Minus Tournament 30th April

A relatively gentle day's croquet with a select band of 8 players mostly on home territory played in warmish sunshine, especially the afternoon.

The competition was played as a single block of 13pt games with no time limit. Although their win rate looked pretty reasonable in the morning session the four scratch players did not have things all their one way and by the final round several other players were still in contention. The final round saw Chris Heath, Noel Gill and Sara Anderson all on 5/7 wins so it was down to net points: +8, +8 and +9 were the scores; and the winner was .... Sara Anderson. Congratulations to Sara who took away the Monteith Challenge Bowl. This trophy was presented to the Club in 1931 by Mr & Mrs GC Braithwaite and was used until 2012 for our Summer Tournament AC Handicap class event - sadly to longer played. In the past it has been won by some well-known players including Sir Delves Broughton (he of Kenya White Mischief fame), Miss Elphinstone-Stone (1946 - she played from 1895 until 1961 and won five tournaments at Southwick), and also one of the players in today's competition - Mrs Daphne Gaitley.

Full results

Sussex County CC 9+ half day singles

The competition was managed by Roger Sutton, for which many thanks from all.

He had to split this tournament into two parts -  AM and PM. The winner of the AM tournament was Angela Avis who beat Pat Harden 4-2

The PM tournament has final was delayed as it started raining and now will be played next Tuesday at 12pm between Karan Hayton and Anne Stanton.

Thank you all for playing please be reminded that all scores should be put onto your handicap cards.

Our next half tournament is on the 30th May please enter via the website.

AM Finals

Dave Comber beat Linda Davies 4-1
Anne Gill beat Stephen Westwood 4-2
Angela Avis beat Pat Harden 4-2 to win the event

PM Semi- & Final

Karen Hayton beat Nira Scutt 4-2
Anne Stanton beat Jerry Key 4-2

Final to be played: Karen Hayton vs Anne Stanton

The Good Friday tournament and donations raised just under £200 and the club is making it up to £200 which will be sent to the Red Cross Ukraine Appeal.   
Roger
 

Jamie Burch wins seventh trophy at Southwick

Unfortunately Covid caused a late withdrawal and a slight re-organisation of the draw. Saturday was chilly - freezing actually - with a cutting wind at times, if interspered with some weak sun. The results proceeded as expected to produce semi-finals of Jamie Burch vs Nigel Polhill and Dominic Nunns (the current trophy holder, albeit from 2019) vs Phil Eardley.

Here is a slightly edited version of Dominic's commentary on CroquetScores:

The two semi-finals featured top seed Jamie Burch against Nigel 'Polecat' Polhill and Dom Nunns versus Phil 'Fingers' Eardley. Both matches finished their first games on a chilly Saturday early evening and resumed in sunnier, warmer weather on Sunday morning.

In Game 1, Jamie Burch ended up on a very delayed triple peel attempt, successfully peeling hoop 10 and making the long rush back down the lawn to 9, before eventually coming unstuck at hoop 12. He then made a posthumous peel to finish for peg and peg. Some interaction ensued before Jamie hit a 15-yarder flush in the middle, rushed oppo's other ball to partner in corner 4, making the cannon. Taking care not to send oppo off along the south boundary, the rush on partner went close enough to the peg to complete the peg-out to win and go one up. In game 2, Jamie missed a straight rover peel on a 5th turn triple peel. Nigel then unfortunately blobbed hoop 9 on an otherwise successful turn, from which Jamie was able to finish +18.

The other semi pitted last year's British Open Doubles semi-finalists against each other. In game 1, Dom Nunns hit in and made 9 but was only able to make an Old Standard Leave with a fairly tight rush set in corner 4. Phil Eardley sportingly admitted in the post-match analysis that having aimed for the corner ball he was somewhat fortuitous to not only snick the other ball, but to do so in such a way as to create a corner cannon, making the ensuing break start easier. This proved something of a turning point. Dom missed his first lift, and then, after Phil made a break to peg with one peel and a decent leave, narrowly missed his second as well; Phil finished for 1-0. Game 2 began with 2h20m on the clock. Dom missed a short hit-in attempt, but then succeeded with a longer one, making 9 and a Maugham Standard Leave. After Phil missed, Dom made a fluent break but was unable to coax the balls into peeling positions and then made an indifferent leave which was hit. Phil made 9 hoops, with the clock already in play, but offered a long shot at a triple target down the east boundary which Dom hit. However, he only made one hoop, leaving Phil with an 11-yarder to hit. There followed a swashbuckling turn, with time already called, and Phil needing at least one peel in addition to his break to prolong the game. He managed two peels, allowing him the luxury of pegging off his own ball and one oppo ball whilst still a point ahead. Dom then missed his last-gasp 18-yarder so Phil won 2-0.

[Jamie Burch commented on Phil's second semi "It was an impressive fight back in the second game from four-back and peg and one and one from Phil, especially the time looming, he wasn't phased by it. (Actually, Phil said that himself, he didn't feel nervous until the last two shots) And it was genuinely impressive actually. It's not easy when you're against time because Phil knows he's slow, he didn't have ages to get a ball and he had to hit his last shot.  Dom did a leave and Phil had to hit it and he had to go around and he did. So actually it was it was an impressive win."]

Dominic's commentary on the final continues:

In the final (best of 3) Jamie played a supershot opening in Game 1 and after two misses, he had the first break, 

making 9 hoops and a Diagonal Spread Leave. Phil narrowly missed the long shot at a boundary red. Jamie continued with a tp which became a delayed double which he completed to take the first game.

In Game 2: Phil missed Jamie' supershot opening but Jamie fails to capitalise and Phil makes 9 hoops with black ending with a diagonal spread. Jamie hit the short shot and looked  as the break progressed to be going for a tpo; in the end Jamie finished his turn with two peels on opponent and was able to finish the turn under control and peg his ball out. Phil saw some action in the three ball ending but eventually Jamie got in on a three ball break and finished to win the match and the (absent) Southwick Salver.

This was Jamie's seventh trophy at Southwick and the fourth time he has won this event.

Plate event

The plate event - for a bottle of wine - was managed (the verb used rather loosely!) as an Hands Egyptian and allowed all players not remaining in the main event to play what games they wished. As is often the case there were some breaks when no-one was available to play. By dint of some extended (and possibly suspect) maths the Manager declared Nigel Polhill the lucky recipient of a bottle of Southwick's best plonk.

Thanks to all for taking part and to Dominic Nunns for being Joint Manager.

Southwick Salver winner Jamie Burch with Club Chairman Clive Hayton

Plate Event winner Nigel Polhill

Full Results

Plate and other games:

Jamie Burch  beat R.Tedstone +17tp and  T.Jenkins +16tp
Dominic Nunns  beat  R.Tedstone +22 and  A.Hardwicke +10
Nigel Polhill  beat C.O'Byrne +17 and  P.Castell +7
Tudor Jenkins beat  P.Castell +9, J.Burch -16tp, P.Dunk +14, A.Hardwicke +12 and lost to C.O'Byrne -26
Chris O'Byrne beat P.Dunk +8, P.Castell +17, T.Jenkins +26 and lost to P.Cordingley -26 and N.Polhill -17,
Roger Tedstone beat  A.Hardwicke +8, P.Dunk +3 and lost to J.Burch -17tp and D.Nunns -22,
Phil Cordingley beat C.O'Byrne +26 and P.Castell -14
Phil Dunk beat  P.Castell +16 and lost to C.O'Byrne -8, T.Jenkins -14 and R.Tedstone -3
Paul Castell beat P.Cordingley +14 and lost to T.Jenkins -9, C.O'Byrne -17, P.Dunk -16 and N.Polhill -7
Anthony Hardwicke lost to R.Tedstone -8, T.Jenkins -12 and D.Nunns -10 

GC Doubles Competition 8th April 2022

This attracted nearly a full entry. The competition was divided into three separate blocks by ability.

Block 1 was won by Roger and Chrissie Merrington with 5 out of 6 wins, beating Richard Brooks and David King on points and in the match between them. 

Block 2 was won outright by Reg and Julia Soffe winning all their games.

Block 3 was won outright by Fiona and Andrew Fall with 5 out of 6 wins.

Congratulations to them all.

Thanks to Roger for managing the day and to Rachel Pointon, Judith Peek and Dinah Hutchins for preparing the lunch.

Full results

 Chilly briefing from Roger before the start of play

Jonathan Isaacs Discusses the Academy and more

Earlier last month the Club Website interviewed Jonathan on a number of croquet topics. His comments will be presented over a couple of articles in the next few months.

Editor:
Can we start by talking about the Academy? Because you've just taken over again as the Academy Director. How far back does your association with the Academy go?

Jonathan Isaacs:
To the very beginning, and beyond! We used to have a Summer School at Southwick, which was very well attended in the last century.

But at the start of this century, the numbers attending started to diminish. And part of the reason was the length of the program which was five days. At the same time, the Croquet Association were looking to create a much better coaching operation. And I saw the opportunity to set up Southwick as the first croquet academy in the UK.

Why? One, to create a centre of excellence for coaching in the UK. Two, to create an additional revenue stream for Southwick because we we need every penny we can get to maintain 11 laws, and three, to build on the strength we already had with our coaching through the Summer School because we already had some very good coaches.

In addition to that, the Federation were looking for a centre for coaching. So eventually, we got together with the CA and the Southeast Croquet Federation, and agreed to setup the Academy. That started in 2007, and it's been pretty successful ever since.

How do you see it changing over the next few seasons?

That's a very good question. We're now in a competitive world, and whereas, when we started, the Croquet Academy was the academy for the whole country. We’ve now got four. And that means we've got competition. I think what will happen going forward is that the four academies will work together so that we'll probably all be offering beginners and improvers courses but as we get to the higher level courses we'll probably share them around so that you would have say one in the North and one of the South each year or one in the West and one in the East. And with the very high level courses, like the Triple Peel Course, you'll probably have one covering the whole country.

The other thing that will happen is that professionalism will improve. If we don't improve we'll die, it's as simple as that because the other academies will be seeking to improve and it's our responsibility to do the same.

Is there a particular emphasis this season?

Yes, this season we want to get our existing coaches in and around the Federation and give them some new ideas, update them on changes that are taking place with coaching and the rules. And in addition, change the way that we coach AC. AC has traditionally been a big struggle and part of it is that people lose the will to live in the early stages with too much jargon and fairly long, protracted courses. Whereas last autumn Frances Low did a trial using Short Croquet. It was modular so it meant that people on the course, were taking it a little bit of the time. This made it far easier to understand and the jargon was reduced - we can't get rid of it completely, but you certainly can reduce it. And in the trial, at the moment only one person out of the twelve is actually stepped down. And that is highly successful. When I think back to the early part of the this millennium, the fallout rate was as much as probably 70 - 80%. So this is a great step forward. It's also the same as is being experienced in the north of England. So I think we’re definitely on to something and we want to emphasise the opportunity for people to take up AC via this course which is going to be run during this summer.

(Discussion to be continued)

Find and book an Academy course on their website

Three winners in the Spring Draw

Congratulations to the first group of winners in our 100 Club Spring Draw:

The first issue of Sussex County's new magazine Hoop & Mallet has been published and is available for members in the clubhouse.

A pdf version can be downloaded here.

GC level play singles competition 25 March 2022

Tight finishes were the order of the day at today's competition, particularly in the top block where 4 of the 8 players scored 5 wins each. Only Block C was decided on outright wins.

Daphne Gaitley won Block A by 5 points from her nearest rivals Liz Farrow and Richard Brooks.

In Block B Jonathan Isaacs beat Tony Nicholas by 5 points with 5 wins each.

In Block C there was an outright win by Simon Ancell with 6 wins to his nearest rival Richard Ellis' 5 wins.

Both Block C and D had 6 of the possible 7 games to play but in the end Block D did not all manage to complete the full quota. Simon Fenn-Tye won Block D with 5 wins from Francis Ainley also with 5 wins.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Thanks to Frances Low for managing the day so expertly and to Richard Brooks for acting as Tournament Referee.

The lunch was kindly provided by Angela Avis, Amy Tucker and Karen Hayton; thanks very much to all of them.

Full results

Opening Day Saturday 2 April 2022

Please come along at 11.00 to celebrate the official opening of the summer season at SCCC featuring

The President’s team v The Chairman’s team

Members will be allocated to teams on arrival and can play GC, AC or one-ball against a selected opponent.

Soup and bread and tea and cake will be available at a cost of £5 per head

Hope to see you there!

Contact Fiona