Sussex County v Surbiton

Report by Mike Akester

Sussex team met at 8.30 at The Robin Hood pub. Jo drove us to Surbiton for our final R League match.

Jo & Davide won the doubles, Kathy beat their "tricky" Margaret. Korky got a "Brucey Bonus" beating their Bruce.

0 -3 at at splendid lunch.

They came back at us in the afternoon under some hot sun.

Jo "Bing" Crosby could not hit it "Straight Down the Middle".

Korky lost too many of his nine lives against Margaret 7-6...7-6.

Davide demolished Eddie Grundy (from The Archer's) and Kathy went 3 rounds to win.

Result 2-5.

Sussex played 4 WON 4 this summer.

Sussex County & Surbiton teams at Surbiton

Sussex County v Ealing Croquet Club

On 26th August a team from Sussex County CC travelled to Ealing CC to play their fourth and final match in the Croquet South East GC Level Play League. Ealing’s Captain, Bridget Goodman is also a member of Sussex County and was therefore welcoming familiar faces to her home venue.

With the long spell of summer drought coming to an end, the weather forecast was for possible heavy showers but, miraculously, they skirted around Ealing and the match was played in warm, dry conditions.

At the lunchtime break Sussex County had taken a 3-0 lead and, following a delicious lunch provided by the home team, continued their success to run out 6-1 winners. This victory made it four out of four wins for Sussex County in this league and, although unconfirmed, means that they will be overall winners as none of the other teams in the league has a 100% record.

The same team of Brian Aikens, David Dickins, Simon Ancell and Douglas Shand played in three out of the four fixtures with Rob Harper and Konstantin Yudintsev replacing Brian and David in one of the matches.

Thanks go to all of them for their help with catering and transport in addition to putting up with endless requests for availability dates.

Brian Aikens

Sussex County v Guildford & Godalming

On Monday, 24th, Sussex County made it 3/3 wins in the R league with a hard-fought 5-2 victory against a wily Guildford and Godalming team.

Five of the seven matches went to the third deciding game.

G&G had already convincingly won their first two matches in the league, so the SCCC team knew they were up against it. They showed a lot of grit to get through.

Surbiton (A) await on Thursday. Let’s hope we adapt to playing on their lawns pretty quickly!

Jo Crosby

Sussex County v Hove Beach

Yesterday we played our friendly match against Hove Beach at their club. Although some rain was predicted, luckily it held off and conditions were near perfect.

he match was very close; we were 2-all at the end of round 1 and 4-all after round 2. At first it was thought that Hove Beach had the edge when it came to net hoops with a 46-40 advantage. It was only today however that Mike A. spotted that the result of his and Susan's game had been listed the wrong way round, so the correct result was a draw: 43-43. Nevertheless it was a great event and I believe everyone had a very enjoyable time. As usual, Hove Beach's hospitality was top notch and they put on a splendid array of food and Pimms.

It will be our turn next year, so I hope we can match their welcome.

Francis Ainley