Crake Valley’s first major Advanced rules AC Tournament, the Cumbria Cup was held on 10th – 11th June, attracting 10 players from many parts of the North West. Arranged as a strict Swiss format, the first day’s play saw Neil Adams (Westmorland) attain a strong position by winning all three of his games.

Although the weather was fine and warm for most of the tournament, the players arrived on Sunday morning to find standing water from some heavy localised rainstorms, causing a delay whilst the lawns were cleared with the Bowdry. Neil continued strongly winning his first game to have 4 wins, but at this stage Charles Harding (Bowdon) and Brian Medley (Bowdon) were each on 3 wins, leaving the final result wide open.

In the final matches, Charles narrowly beat Neil, but Brian lost to a fine performance from Ged Smolskas (Bury), leaving a two-way tie at the top. Charles and Neil were also tied using the allotted tie-break of the number wins of their opponents.

The result rested on the fact that Charles beat Neil in their final match (by 1 hoop!), so Charles Harding was declared winner of this keenly fought tournament. (Full results are on Croquet Scores)

Before the prize-giving, Pam Bevins kindly presented to the Club a superb bench with an inscription in memory of Dave Nick, saying a few words on how much her former partner loved the game of croquet. The bench will undoubtedly be well used and will be a fitting tribute to all the work that Dave Nick put into Club.

What’s the point of this GC event? We have five courts, all prepared and laid out on a browning fast surface. Perfect weather, in fact the hottest day of the year so far, and still only Five entries applied to this A class Open event – pathetic!

On the run-up to this weekend, various conversations with the players (& the CA) were held, about should it be reduced to a single day or stick with two, what format would entries support etc…

On the day, a single round of 19 point block games was played – it was enough in that heat!

Series points (in order) to;

Roger l’Anson, Andrew Gould, Libby Dixon, Chris Wood.

Full results can be found at Croquetscores (https://croquetscores.com/2023/gc/pendle-open/all-play-all)

Photo ; Roger l’Anson from manager Gill Uglow

Wembley? Twickenham? St Andrews? None of these..

This year’s most important Home Internationals were hosted  at Earby in bright sunshine – indeed the North West was officially the warmest, driest place in the  kingdom over the weekend, a suitable reward for all those chosen to come to a venue the furthest north in this country – ever!

Pendle and Craven Croquet Club hosted the annual Home International AC tournament between The Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England this weekend. 

The national teams of five players each converged on Saturday morning for the two day event.

England started well against Wales but Scotland Vs Ireland swayed one way then the other and with rubber scores equal, round two started.

Day one drew to a late close without any team delivering a winning blow, Ireland / Wales with 1.5 points each, England a point ahead of Scotland.

After a great social evening, involving all players, day two saw the start of round 3, giving decisive wins for England & Wales over Ireland & Scotland respectively.

The more important missing games were then resumed including two ‘pegged-down’ unfinished rubbers from day 1 as the full time whistle got close.

With Trains & Planes beckoning, a half was offered by England to Scotland on the two unfinished rubbers. Upon acceptance England could be presented with the trophy with 22 points, 9 clear of the field.

Teams & players in the order they stand in group shot above (L-R);

Ireland; Andrew Johnston(c), Brian Havill, Simon Williams, Jane Morrison, Sandy Greig

Wales; Rich Waterman, Rick Harding, Ian Burridge(C), Chris Williams, Angharrad Walters 

Scotland; Alastair Burn-Murdoch, Stephen Wright, Sam Murray (C), Lorna Dewar, Andrew Symons, 

England; Mark Van Loon, Aston Wade, David Maugham(C), Richard Smith, Dominic Nunns

Presentation Party; Ian Burridge(CA Treasurer), David Maugham(Captain), John Hartley(Forte Foundation Trustee)