Short Croquet Interclub Competition

There was so much enthusiasm for playing in SCCC’s first ever match in Croquet England’s Short Croquet Interclub competition that playoffs had to be held to pick the team.

It was impossible to find a date that everyone interested could make, but on 14 April 10 hopefuls were blessed with fine weather and enjoyed three rounds of closely contested games.

Some were experienced Short Croquet players while others were playing their first game of Short Croquet, so help with the rules was on hand and a few coaching pointers were offered at the end of the day.

Steve Chapman was undefeated and so secured first place in the team. Nigel Billingham, David Dickins, Tony Marjoram and Kathy McColgan all won two of their three games, but Nigel was unavailable for the first match date and David Dickins very honourably stepped aside in favour of Bob Clark; Gabrielle as manager had made a handicapping error at the start of the day by failing to check if anyone’s AC handicap had reduced since their SC handicap was set, which resulted in David having more bisques than he should have done in his game against Bob, and David also has more external AC tournament experience than Bob.

The resultant team of Steve, Tony, Kathy and Bob will be taking on Chichester at home on 2 June. Spectators and supporters are welcome.

Meanwhile, there was enthusiasm for another day of Short Croquet later in the season, and if anyone is interested in joining the group, do let Gabrielle Higgins know.

Many thanks to Ben for setting out lawn 10 for Short Croquet for the day as well as lawn 11.

Thanks to Gabrielle for organising the event.