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