David Maugham wins Bowdon June Advanced Weekend (4/6/06) by Ian Lines

The Bowdon June Advanced Weekend was won by David Maugham who beat Ian Lines in the final (+14otp, -19, -26tp, +14tp, +15tp), finishing at 7.15pm in glorious evening sunshine. The consolation Egyptian Event was won by Brian Storey, who only lost two games (to David Maugham in the semi-finals). All the main event games went according to seeding (8 seeds), except Ian Lines beating Colin Irwin in the semi-finals. Ian won the first game +1 after Colin did all three peels of a triple and pegged out one of his own and Ian’s peg ball. Ian hit the 14 yard lift from A baulk and 2 balled out from 4 back.

In the final, Ian went first every game, going 8 yards north of corner 4, David to corner 2 every game, Ian hit partner from A baulk every game! In the first game, Ian went off in corner 2 (lawns just on the fast side of medium), David to 4-back, but broke down (hampered) after hoop 1 with his second ball. Ian did the TPO leaving balls in corner 1 and 10 yards north of corner 4. David split from east boundary to corner 1, rolled off hoop 2 !, +14otp to David. In the next 4 games Ian had various rough dream leaves 3rd turn, and went round to 4-back 5th turn with diagonal spreads. In game 2 David started a TPO but broke down at 2-back after doing a death roll penult peel, leaving Ian a 7-yarder for an easy finish. In game 3, Ian had a 7th turn TP. In games 4 and 5 Ian broke down after a few hoops with the second ball, and David finished with tidy TPs, Ian missing the lifts by next to nothing.

The Bowdon lawns were excellent, with hoops set firmly to 1/32nd. Various photos can be found on the Bowdon web site at http://www.bowdoncroquet.co.uk/ . The Peterson Trophy was presented to David by club president Sheila Black, and thanks were recorded to John Saxby and his team for the magnificent catering, and to all those involved in preparing and setting the lawns.

Longman Cup – Nottingham beat Bowdon 5-2 (22/5/06) by Michael Finnigan

There was no over-confidence amongst the Nottingham team when, after a morning’s rain sodden play at Bowdon, three close games resulted in Nottingham leading three-nil. Been there before, and learned the hard way that this does not guarantee an overall win! The lead had fluctuated in all three of the games, but eventually William Gee, in an immaculate Longman debut, pegged out his opponent’s forward ball and managed to stay clear to win +3. The Nottingham pair wrapped up the doubles soon afterwards, but Michael Finnigan kept everyone waiting for lunch until a lucky hit in after time led to his winning on the “golden hoop”.

In the afternoon William demonstrated the ability of youth to adapt quickly to the fast lawns of Bowdon (at least, Nottingham thought they were fast, but the home team assured us they were the slowest they had been all season) by beating Lorna Frost with considerable panache, thus securing the overall result in Nottingham’s favour. Just as well, as Barry Keene found his form to beat Martin Beacon, and Michael Finnigan was overwhelmed by Janice Moir. However, Nigel Hames-Keward added to the Nottingham total by wining another hard fought game against Steve Reynolds.