There was an early 8am start on Sunday, 7th June for Francis, Morgan, John and Jo. A smooth journey to the ULEZ zone and Roehampton club (thank goodness for an EV), to find that the weather was kinder in London than it was on the coast.

Overcast skies, no rain, the occasional glimpse of the sun and a gusting wind that took the ball off its perfect line. Perhaps. All this accompanied by very large jets going overhead at incredibly short intervals. The perfect way to clear your head before the next shot – was that Emirates? Qatar? BA?

The morning consisted of three close morning matches (all going to three), of which the doubles was won by John and Morgan, with Morgan running a tricky hoop in added time and Jo winning her singles. 2-1 up at lunch.

A delicious sandwich (with chips!) and brownies were very welcome by 1:15pm.

The afternoon session consisted of four more tight singles matches – all bar one going to three games. Sussex County had three more wins (Morgan, Francis and Jo).

During the day, six games went to golden hoops, four of which were won by Sussex County, and crucially two by Francis in one three game match. Gritty stuff.

So Sussex County won the match 5-2 and are into the quarter finals, where Guildford await.

The journey home to the south coast was remarkable in that Jo was so busy chatting that despite familiar roads, she missed two turnings and ended up doing some sight-seeing in Surrey. She will never live it down!

Thank you to Roehampton for the hospitality and a match played in good spirit.

A big thank you to Jo for captaining on the day, driving the tem both ways and writing a report as well - with a picture too.

Croquet South East GC Level Play League 2026

Sussex County started their campaign in the Croquet South East GC Level Play League 2026 with a hard fought home match against Hove Beach CC.

The team of David Dickins, Douglas Shand, Brian Aikens and Simon Ancell found themselves 1-2 down at lunchtime after some excellent play by the members of the Hove Beach team. This meant that, of the four Singles matches to be played in the afternoon, Sussex County needed to win three of them to clinch victory.

Whatever was in the home team’s lunch seemed to do the trick, as Sussex County managed to secure the three required wins to turn the tables and run out winners of this very close match, 4-3.

Brian Aikens

Perry wins award

Perry from the club's pear tree has won another award at the 2025 Bluebell festival. One of our ciders also won the Cider of the festival award.

We now have other perries that we produce, so we have had to rename our flagship club perry, calling it Hoop & Mallet. It will be available at the Lewes festival next week along with another perry and three ciders of ours.

We are curious to find out more about the Pear tree. If anyone knows anything about the origin, please let us know. The RHS will perform DNA testing of samples free of charge for members and will want as much background information as possible. Do we have any RHS members in the club? Packages should be sent early in the week to avoid spoiling.

If any members know of a perry pears (non-culinary pears) source, please let us know.

David & Deborah Marcus

GC doubles 30th May

A fine day greeted the 36 players who had entered this tournament, it was thankfully cooler than it had been earlier in the week.

Division A was a straight forward win for Richard Brooks and David Dickens who won all of their games They were followed by Brian and Konstantine who had three wins beating Simon Ancell and Vincent only by the fact that they had won their match with Simon and Vincent both teams having three wins and + 4 hoops.

Division two was closer with Mark Barnham and Tony Marjoram and Sue and Tony Nicholas both having 4 wins Mark and Tony however had a better hoop count +14 against +8.  Beryl Hughes and Gavin Taylor were third.

Division C was won by members of Bromley CC John Butler and Gloria Perez-Vertiz with 4 wins beating David Funnell and Diana Rolfe, both having four wins but John and Gloria had a +12 hoop count against  David and Diana.

Division D was won by Jane Sims and Peter Hill.

Full results to come but all the scores are on Croquet Scores

Thanks to Roger for managing the event