Listen very carefully and you might hear the rasping death throes of AC play up here in the North West – why start a report in such a manner? 

Well, despite multiple reminders from the Federation Secretary  to all member clubs, trying to gather support for the Federation’s Premier Tournament, the AC Millennium Level Play, the response was pitiful. Only eight players from four clubs attended this two day tournament at Pendle & Craven CC, with Handicaps ranging from 4.5 down to -1.5, both trophies at least could be contested.

Play got underway as the last winds from storm ‘Betty’ made conditions for ‘casters’ tricky. Four courts had been prepared, so luxurious single banking enabled four rounds of untimed games to be completed well before the booked tournament meal at the Jade.

Sunday was a warmer affair (summer returned), as the remaining three rounds of the all-play-all were completed… with the last round producing ties on number of wins for both cups.. This should have been resolved using who-beat-who for the Neil Williams, but all the high handicappers had beaten each other, and the options of playing various tie-breaking games were rejected, so ‘net-points’ as a method was utilised to separate them.

Thanks to Angharrad for posting up on CroquetScores, (https://croquetscores.com/2023/ac/nwfed-millennium-advanced) Richard, Nigel & Robert for helping set-up/clear-up

This year’s ‘Neil Williams recipient – Nigel Matthews (Woodland winner in ’22)

and the ‘Woodlands’ – to Steve Skelton.

Cheers Riggey

Now before all you North West Federation Members get upset – I don’t mean we lost I mean the actual Trophy is lost!

Two teams of 6 players from Croquet North and The North West Federation met at Pendle for this annual competition.  The two Captains did their best to match handicaps to enable the format of 3 Level Play Doubles in the morning and 6 games of singles in the afternoon. 

The morning doubles finished 2 -1 in favour of Croquet North with two of the games going to exciting “time turn” finishes in which Croquet North showed great resilience and determination.   The afternoon singles were 4 Advanced games and 2 handicap games matching the handicaps as best as could be done.  As results filtered in the score became 2 – 2 and then 3 – 2 to Croquet North.  The next match to finish made the result 4 – 2 to the visitors.  The home team’s players Steve Skelton and Phil Snowden pulled the score back to 4 – 4 and it took Brian Medley to finalise the score at 5 -4 to The North West Federation. 

Thank you to non-playing Captains Liz Wilson and Julian Gibson for arranging the event and to Pendle for hosting

Results as follows

Neil Adams and Phil Snowden lost to Phil Errington and Nigel Durie ( – 1 on time)

Brian Medley and Betty Bates beat Terry Vernazza and David Millener (+10)

Steve Skelton and Garry Wilson lost to Derek Watts and Nigel Roberts (- 1 on time)

Neil Adams beat Phil Errington (26TP – 1)

Garry Wilson lost to David Millener (12 – 26)

Betty Bates lost to Nigel Durie (14 – 21)

Steve Skelton beat Terry Vernazza (26 -12)

Phil Snowden beat Nigel Roberts (26 – 16)

Brian Medley beat Derek Watts (26 – 14)

Pictures show all the doubles pairings “in-action”

Twelve AC players took to the superb lawns at Crake Valley over the weekend of 5th & 6th August.

Two blocks of six saw only 4 games out of 24 go to time. Most games being decided by quality breaks from the winner.

At the end of the 5 rounds there were two players in Block A on 4 wins – Rick Harding (Southport) and Charles Harding (Bowdon). Charles progressing by virtue of “who beat who”. In Block B, three players secured 4 wins out of 5. Neil Adams (Westmorland), Mike Sandler (Bowdon) and Steve Skelton (Keswick) all had a win against each other meaning Neil progressed on hoop difference (of plus 95!).

In the group stages both Neil and Rick achieve a triple peel.

Moving to the final and Neil took early control and overcame Charles by 26-4 TP. A great achievement for a player who only took up croquet about 3 years ago.

The other significant achievement was in the 3rd and 4th place play off where Mike Sandler only got 3 shots as Rick Harding achieved a SEXTUPLE.

This was fantastic to watch and, we believe, this is the first time it has been done at Crake Valley. Dave Nick produced one in Southport in 2006 but there is no record of a sextuple peel in tournament play at Crake.

Liz Wilson (NW Federation AC handicap officer) presented Rick with his paperwork to receive a Platinum Award from the CA.