Sussex win Murphy Shield Quarter Final

On yet another hot and sunny day with no cooling breeze Sussex County welcomed our friends from Guildford & Godalming for a quarter-final match in the national Murphy Shield.

Ben and Nigel got us off to a good start, winning the doubles in two straight games. The two morning singles were long drawn out affairs, both going to 3 games with Jo winning hers against a 2 handicapper. 2-1 up at lunch.

Guildford & Godalming pulled one back straight after lunch and soon it was 3-3 with, as is so often the case, everything hinging on the final game.

We all sat down to watch as Jo took on Phil Tremble for the decider. Phil won the first game; the second went to the golden hoop with both players having chances to win. Jo eventually prevailed, setting up what might have been a nail-biting finish. However, a confident Jo took full control of the third game winning comfortably 7-2.

A 4-3 victory and an away semi-final against Phyllis Court or East Dorset.

Thanks to Ben, Nigel and Jo for playing and to Guildford and Godalming for the friendly spirit in which the tie was played.

Vincent

Sussex County Open Singles – 15 July

A beautiful day welcomed 32 players for the latest one-day singles competition. 11 entrants attended from clubs outside of SCCC, notably, Nelson Morrow who was over from New Zealand and Debbie and Steve Hayns from the Isle of Wight. Divisions A, B, D and E all had 6 players, each playing 5 games. Division C had 8 players, so was split into two groups of four playing 3 games in the morning, with play-offs in the afternoon to decide the overall winner.

The conditions were challenging: high temperatures, a moderate breeze, fast lawns and uncompromising hoops. It was decided, therefore, to limit games to 50 minutes, without which, I suspect, we would have been playing well into the evening.

Division A came down to a final game playoff between Brian Aikens and Konstantin Yudintsev, both of whom had won three of their first four games. Konstantin prevailed 5-3 to win the group, and elevating Simon Ancell into second on net hoops.

Division B was won convincingly by Richard Brooks, just to show the organiser that he should have been in Division A really! Paul Green had an excellent day, finishing second in a field of lower handicappers.

The Division C Final was contested by Mike Gentry and Beryl Hughes, both of whom had come through from Block C2. Mike had won all his games to this point, and the final went with form; Mike prevailing 7-5.

Division D was hard fought, with 1 win separating the top four players. In the end, Peter Hill came out on top, with Sue Nicholas in second.

Division E was equally tight, but Tony Majoram took the title, with David Larkin in second. Commiserations to Jim Mander who broke his mallet early on, providing him with yet another hurdle to overcome on the day.

Thank you to everybody who made it such a good natured and enjoyable day.

David

Thanks to David for managing the event

Sussex County Southern Challenge

The Southern Challenge is a GC competition run at and by Sussex County Croquet Club for local clubs.

It was a hot day, the hoops had been reset and were very tight making hooping difficult.

I had fortunately put time limits on all games which kept the tournament moving at an acceptable pace.

Although there was an imbalance of handicaps - Bromley and Canterbury averaging 7 & 8 handicaps while Sussex County averaged 1 - the tournament finished very close and it was the last round victory (their first of the afternoon) of Canterbury over Hove Beach that gave the victory to Sussex County for the second year running.

Hove Beach were second and Sussex County 2 were third.

Tournament result

1st Sussex County 1 3 wins + 24 hoops
2nd Hove Beach 3 wins +15 hoops
3rd Sussex county 2 3 wins +5 hoops
4th Lodsworth 2 wins + 2 hoops
5th Bromley 2 wins - 12 hoops
6th Canterbury 1 win - 31 Hoops

Thanks to Roger for managing the event.

U League vs Ealing

On 10th July we hosted Ealing for our final U league fixture of 2026.

Today’s team ( Chrissie, Steve , Tony and Nigel ), seen in photo below with our opposition did as all our U league teams have done for two years won ( 5-2) and once again finished with a 4-0 win record for the season.

It was a tough day for both teams fighting both the incessant heat as well as hoops that had recently been reset for the Inter Counties at what seemed like impossible widths ( I’m sure the top players will have none of the problems we all encountered 😉).

The morning session ended 2-1 to SCCC with Steve and Nigel both winning their singles and in the afternoon session Steve, Tony and Nigel all triumphed.

A big thank you to all players that volunteered for this years squad and lets look forward to another successful year next year.

Nigel Billingham