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THE AMAZING GREAT NORTH WEST FEDERATION FESTIVAL OF CROQUET 2023

28 June 2023 by Chris Alvey

(Southport 24-25^th June 2023)

What a weekend! The great 28^th North West Festival of Croquet came to sunny Southport and did not disappoint. We had everything – heat wave on Saturday, torrential rain on Sunday, then more sunshine, some great Croquet – plus the usual cries of anguish from clanged hoops and muffed shots. Just about every age group was represented, from our youngest player aged eleven to the, well let’s say the veterans, and representatives of just about every decade in between. There were really fit players and the crocked ones, bearing a range of mallets, from the super shiny ones gleaming in the sunshine to the scruffy ones much loved by their owners.

The kaleidoscope spectacular, with players in their distinctive club colours, hats of every description, multi coloured umbrellas, shiny balloons, and some players – over enthusiastic with the flush control in the portable toilets – adding Elsan blue to their uniform!

Southport have invested heavily in their lawns, the South Lawns were superb and the infamous North Lawns, much criticised in the past, are now the envy of many clubs. Southport set out ten full lawns and six half lawns, to accommodate 39 teams playing Association Croquet at Advanced, Handicap and Short Levels, in addition to Golf Croquet at Level and Handicap formats. The packed timetable resulted in 201 games of Croquet – no mean feat of organisation and scheduling. Regular sounding of bells and hooters kept the GC on schedule whilst the AC relied on friendly cajoling and with all games finishing immediately time is called, leading to some frantic running around by players as games neared their finish ……… some players have probably not moved so fast in years!

Even the downpour on Sunday did not dampen spirits, as players had fun paddling in the puddles and even more fun trying to hit balls through them. Amazingly, as the rain stopped the puddles soaked away quickly into the Irish Sea just a few feet below the lawns.

The catering, as always was fantastic, the wonderful clubhouse team serving about 60 meals and afternoon teas each day, whilst the ‘refreshment table’ did a brisk trade throughout.

And the Results Were:

Handicap Golf Croquet Competition – Fylde and Bury both achieved 7 out of 9 wins, but as Fylde had beaten Bury, they were awarded the much coveted GC Handicap Shield.

Level Play Golf Croquet – the Bowdon pairing of Jack Good and Simon Jenkins defeated all before them and took the GC Level shield with nine wins. Llanfairfechan finished 2nd with 6 wins.

Short Association Croquet – a fast moving very close competition with Southport winning 11 games, but Fylde edged it with 12 wins to snatch this tantalising shield.

Handicap Association Croquet – in an extremely close contest, Fylde, Llanfairfechan and Westmorland won 7 out of 12, but Bowdon went one better to grab the AC Handicap Shield with 8 victories.

Advanced Association Croquet – Bury and Llanfairfechan won 3 out of 5 games but could not catch Paul Rigge’s Pendle side, who were undefeated to take away the much prized Advanced AC Shield.

And the Overall Winner Was:

Four Clubs were joint second with 93 Festival Points – Bowdon, Bury, Fylde and Llanfairfechan. The ultimate fanfair though, on achieving 105 Festival Points, congratulations go to the 2023 Festival Champions – Pendle – who were awarded the prestigious Festival Trophy.

Federation Chair, John Haslam thanked everyone for attending this spectacular event and also the inter-club organising committee of David Cornes, Tom Grievson, Rick Harding, Esther Jubb, Sam Seal, Rachel Snowdon, Tony Thomas, Martin Tovey and Liz Wilson. He thanked the Southport Club members for their hard work in setting out everything at early dawn each day and of course the wonderful catering team. He then presented the prestigious Festival Cup to Libby Dixon, captain of Pendle to much applause.

A great weekend of friendship and fun, some wonderful Croquet and memories to treasure. This event is unique to our North West Federation and is simply amazing! See you all again next year.

Report by Tony Thomas

Another wonderful festival

30 June 2022 by Chris Alvey

Additional Images to follow

What a great weekend! – the great North West Festival of Croquet appeared again on Southport lawns last weekend (25/26 June). Despite the weather hitting us with everything – sunshine, wind, rain, thunder, even hailstones – nothing could dampen the colourful extravaganza this event has become famous for. Old friendships were renewed, new ones made, in a non-stop schedule of croquet matches involving 33 teams from ten clubs, covering five disciplines of Golf and Association Croquet. Newer members experiencing this event for the first time were enthralled by the spectacle, especially if they played in a few games.

The lawns and surroundings were magnificent thanks to weeks of hard work by Terry Dunbar and his team and the catering was just superb, thanks to Margaret Flemington and her wonderful team.

Although attendance was slightly down on previous years, the new format of a very tight schedule, shotgun start to some events, games finishing with no extra shots, no results on cards, resulted in more exciting and adventurous play, adding to the enjoyment of the weekend.

For the record – Bowdon took the Champion Club Trophy, winning the Handicap AC:

Level GC:

Short AC:

and Level play AC:

Fylde won the Handicap GC:

The bottles of wine for best dressed players went to Liz Taylor Webb (Bowdon) and Peter Wilson (Fylde).

It is estimated over 80 players plus spectators were in attendance each day. A big Thank You to everyone who took part and everyone who helped with the many tasks needed to be completed for an event of this size.

P.S. Reminder to Bowdon – please bring the trophies back next year!

(Report and pictures by Tony Thomas, additional pictures by Sarah Clements)

What did you think of the Festival?

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Bowdon Wins 2014 North West Festival of Croquet

30 June 2014 by Keith Roberts

Bowdon claims overall Championship at Southport

2014 Festival Advanced Winners - Bowdon — 2014 Festival Advanced Winners – Bowdon

Westmorland - 2014 Festival Handicap winners — Westmorland – 2014 Festival Handicap winners

Chester - 2014 Festival Short Winners — Chester – 2014 Festival Short Winners

Bowdon - 2014 Festival Golf Winners — Bowdon – 2014 Festival Golf Winners

2014 Festival - Golf Event

	Bo	Bu	Ch	Cu	Fy	Ta	So	We	Won	Pts	Pos
Bowdon	---	2-1	2-1	2-1	1-2	2-1	2-1	1-2	5	8	1
Bury	1-2	---	1-2	3-0	3-0	1-1	1-2	2-1	3	4	5
Chester	1-2	2-1	---	1-2	2-1	3-0	2-1	3-0	5	6	3
Culcheth	1-2	0-3	2-1	---	2-1	3-0	2-1	3-0	5	7	2
Fylde	2-1	0-3	1-2	1-2	---	1-2	2-1	2-1	3	3	6
Tattenhall	1-2	1-1	0-3	0-3	2-1	---	0-3	2-1	2	2	7
Southport	1-2	2-1	1-2	1-2	1-2	3-0	---	3-0	3	5	4
W'morland	2-1	1-2	0-3	0-3	1-2	1-2	0-3	---	1	1	8

2014 Festival - Short Event

	Bo	Bu	Ch	Fy	So	W3	Won	Pts	Pos
Bowdon	---	2-1	1-1	1-2	1-2	2-1	2	3	4
Bury	1-2	---	1-2	2-1	0-3	2-1	2	2	5
Chester	1-1	2-1	---	1-2	2-1	3-0	3	6	1
Fylde	2-1	1-2	2-1	---	1-2	2-1	3	4	3
Southport	2-1	3-0	1-2	2-1	---	1-2	3	5	2
Westmorland	1-2	1-2	0-3	1-2	2-1	---	1	1	6

2014 Festival - Handicap Event

	Bo	Bu	Ch	Fy	IM	Pe	So	We	Won	Pts	Pos
Bowdon	---	3-0	2-1	0-3	2-1	1-2	2-1	1-2	4	6	3
Bury	0-3	---	2-1	2-1	1-2	1-1	2-1	1-2	3	5	4
Chester	1-2	1-2	---	1-2	1-2	1-2	2-1	1-2	1	1	8
Fylde	3-0	1-2	2-1	---	2-1	1-2	0-3	0-3	3	2	7
Isle of Man	1-2	2-1	2-1	1-2	---	1-2	1-2	2-1	3	3	6
Pendle	2-1	1-1	2-1	2-1	2-1	---	1-2	1-2	4	7	2
Southport	1-2	1-2	1-2	3-0	2-1	2-1	---	1-2	3	4	5
W'morland	2-1	2-1	2-1	3-0	1-2	2-1	2-1	---	6	8	1

2014 Festival - Advanced Event

	Bo	Bu	Cr	Fy	Pe	So	Won	Pts	Pos
Bowdon	---	1	1	1	1	1	5	6	1
Bury	0	---	0	1	0	1	2	3	4
Crake	0	1	---	1	0	1	3	4	3
Fylde	0	0	0	---	0	0	0	1	6
Pendle	0	1	1	1	---	1	4	5	2
Southport	0	0	0	1	0	---	1	2	5

	ADV	HCP	SHT	GLF	PTS	POS
Bowdon	6	6	3	8	23	1
Bury	3	5	2	4	14	3
Chester	-	1	6	6	13	4
Crake Valley	4	-	-	-	4	9
Culcheth	-	-	-	7	7	8
Fylde	1	2	4	3	10	6=
Isle of Man	-	3	-	-	3	10
Pendle	5	7	-	-	12	5
Southport	2	4	5	5	16	2
Tattenhall	-	-	-	2	2	11
Westmorland	-	8	1	1	10	6=

Bowdon claims overall Championship at Southport

The North West Federation of Croquet Clubs held its annual Club Championships at the Southport & Birkdale Club (S&B) over the weekend of 28^th and 29^th June 2014. This was the 20^th Year of the Championships, which we call the Festival of Croquet, and we still believe that this is the largest annual gathering of Croquet players in the world at a single venue.

S&B managed to produce 16 courts on 13 ‘full size’ lawns including 7½ full size equivalent on the Club’s north lawns. Some 228 games were played requiring 78 players to be ‘on the lawns’ for any one round, but most Clubs brought extra people to give all of their members the opportunity to participate in this very special event. In all we estimate the number of individual participants to be in excess of 110. Although the Manager had promised that the sun would shine the first day started cloudy and there were occasional threats of rain which failed to materialise. Sunday started bright with some sunshine and presentations were made under a clear blue sky.

The overall Championship was won by Bowdon with Southport in second place, Bury finishing third.

There were eight entrants of three person teams in the Golf Croquet Championship which was won by Bowdon with six victories from seven matches, Culcheth took the runner-up spot with five wins.

The Short competition, also best of three per match, was won by Chester with four wins from five matches. Chester could well have made a clean sweep were it not for one of a number of voided or replayed games, in the Golf and Short disciplines, caused by teams not playing their games in handicap order. S&B was in second place.

As in 2013, eight teams competed in the Handicap event which was played as an 18 point. The Handicap Championship returned to three singles per match having been one singles and one doubles in 2013. It was won by Westmorland which has had notable successes in league handicap play in the last couple of years. Pendle was runner-up.

The fourth event, Advanced play, was, once again, a doubles event played almost exclusively on Southport’s Lawn 1. Although a serious affair, which included many County and International players, it was also the one with the most colourful participants. The Bowdon pair was unbeaten in their five games with Pendle a solid second losing only to the Champions.

Entry levels were much the same as in 2013 with just one fewer Golf Croquet team competing, resulting in 84 games compared with 108 last year. The number of games was further reduced as last year’s schedule called for Short Croquet teams to ‘all play all’ twice – 90 games – this year there were half that number. These reductions allowed an additional 28 games of Handicap play due to the change from a two game match (one single/one double) in 2013. These changes in format, ie. the reduction in the number of games, appear to have been received favourably by Golf and Short Croquet players as the previous year’s schedule was a tad hectic. Handicap players were delighted to be able to play a full singles format.

The Manager is of the opinion that the Advanced players enjoyed playing all of their games on the same lawn as it allowed for greater interaction with the gallery (a euphemism for banter!)

Although we don’t have data on the number of Handicap games resulting in a finish at the peg, from your reporter’s perspective it appeared to be the case that a significant proportion of games were completed in this manner.

Keith Roberts, Manager (and reporter) began the presentation formalities by thanking Liz Wilson, the Championship Secretary, and highlighting the work of the Event Managers – the people who keep everything rolling along – they were Sue Hardman, Golf Coquet; Brian Lewis, Short Croquet; Liz Wilson, Advanced. Keith managed the Handicap event. Keith also thanked Colin Irwin for being Referee of the Tournament, Brian Lewis, Chairman of S&B and all of the members of the club who worked hard to prepare lawns in the weeks leading to the Championships and at the weekend. Keith’s final thank you was for all of the participants over the two days, many of whom had travelled some distance and at no little cost, to play in the Championships. He made special mention of the Tattenhall Club which was enjoying its first experience of the Championship and acquitting itself well by winning two of its Golf Croquet matches.

Liz Wilson, now in her role of Chairman of the Federation, thanked the Southport and Birkdale Club particularly the clubs organisers and caterers, those wearing bold colours, the Championship Manager and went on to highlight the range of croquet skills and experience from Great Britain internationals, County players (two from Cheshire, one from Yorkshire and several Lancashire representatives) to the first timers who were invited to stand and were applauded. Shields were presented by Liz.

Another splendid Championship, I’m looking forward to next year.

Keith Roberts, Championship Manager

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