North-West All-England Area Final (17/9/06) by David Cotton

On September 2nd, 12 hopefuls from the North West’s croquet clubs arrived at Pendle & Craven Club for the first day of the qualifying finals for the All England Handicap competition. Bowdon fielded 5 players, Bury 2, Ashby 1, Huddersfield 1, Pendle & Craven 2 and Fylde 1. The competition was a 5 round Swiss event, full bisque, base 10. 3 people were to qualify for the finals in Nailsea on 16th and 17th September.

From the outset, the lowest handicappers in the competition – Liz Wilson (4) and Abdul Ahmad (4.5) – played with great gusto and a cheerful, if philosophical, approach which belied their feelings that in this competition the handicap odds may be stacked high against them! As the first round started the rain became heavier and heavier and, after 2 hours of play, even the strongest players struggled to roll a ball the width of a lawn. Water began to collect in deep puddles and the now horizontal rain began to impede vision. Apparently waterproof trousers became saturated and see-through, to the chagrin of their wearers. And yet…the 12 players struggled on against all odds to complete their games. At the end of round 1, it became obvious that play could not continue. Players enjoyed a wonderful lunch, whilst clothes steamed and the rain became more torrential. We renamed the game “Soaket.”By mutual agreement, play stopped for the day. To ensure the completion of 5 rounds, it was agreed to play 4 x 14 point rounds on the following day.

Sunday saw slightly brighter skies and a renewed high spirit. Leonard Ainsworth (Fylde) and David Cotton (Bowdon) had each won all their games in the first three rounds. Robin Delves (Pendle & Craven) had proved master of the Rover peel and spirits remained high. By round 4, Leonard was beginning to prove invincible. His methodical, steady approach and good use of bisques robbed David off his 4th game. Meanwhile, Paul Kenworthy of Bury beat Jenny Dennis of Bowdon to take his 3rd game of the competition and Liz Wilson (Pendle & Craven) joined Abdul Ahmad (Bowdon) and Malcolm Daines (Huddersfield) in winning her 2nd game.

By now, Leonard seemed to have it in the bag. Steadily working his way round he took the 5th round from Paul to win all 5 of his games and 1st place in the competition. Robin Delves won his 4th game to take 2nd place and no less than 5 people tied for 3rd place. The 5 way tie for third was resolved by a shootout at the peg as advertised before the start. The first 2 tiebreaker clauses had failed to produce a result. However, 3 of the 5 people tying for third place were unable to go to Nailsea, so time was saved by only having the 2 who were able to go take part in the shoot out. In a nail biting finish, Paul Kenworthy took 3rd place and Malcolm Daines was nominated as first reserve.

Many thanks to Peter Wilson for his great organisation of the competition and to Pendle & Craven for their splendid hospitality

A Tribute to John Beech (Died 10 September 2006) by Kathryn and Roger Schofield

John Beech, the man, where do you start to do justice to a man who was so much to so many people?

First and foremost John was a Christian and a family man. His faith shone through in all parts of his life, and he loved to go anywhere and everywhere to preach the gospel of Christ as a Methodist local preacher for over 40 years. He leaves a devoted wife, Kathleen, four grown up sons, Simon, Paul, David and James, daughters-in-law and two grandchildren, Charlotte and Jonathan.

After these came the other great loves of his life Stoke City Football Club and croquet. You would be amazed how often Stoke City and some aspect of croquet appeared as illustrations in his sermons! He was also a member of the Gideons.

John was an outgoing, friendly kind of chap, who could talk to anyone and usually did. He worked in education during his working life and finished his career with Bury Education Authority. He went to agricultural college which enabled him to write his book “Lawn Management”.

John went on a course through work where there was a croquet lawn and came back home full of enthusiasm for this wonderful sport. At a similar time his friend and neighbour, Norman Hicks, was also introduced to croquet at a different venue. They got their heads together and played on John’s back lawn. As John often said they thought they knew how to play but later they discovered they were not necessarily obeying all the rules! As John was a Methodist and Norman was a Baptist they each went to their different churches on a recruitment drive, and a few of us who liked playing bat and ball went to a meeting at John’s house and formed Croquet in Pendle and John started his own little business, Woodland Mallets. We played on the back lawn for a bit, but as you know nothing was impossible to John. It wasn’t long before we were playing on the front lawns at Nelson and Colne College, then we added three more lawns round the back, then we had to move these back three lawns on to a different part of the playing fields. Then we eventually moved to Earby after several abortive attempts at other sites in the Pendle area. Throughout all this development John worked tirelessly at any and every job at the croquet club. If no one else would do it, John would take it on, as well as the hundreds of jobs he was already doing.

John was well known throughout the croquet world and has been a past chairman of the North West Federation of Croquet Clubs and also for quite a number of years Development Officer and a member of the C.A. Council. Many clubs including Bury, Llanfairfechan and Culcheth are grateful for the many hours he put in helping them get established. He did a great deal to help the development of croquet in the north. When our club wanted to honour him in some way at the newly developed club in Earby all he wanted was a CA Diploma. He achieved this when at our opening ceremony in July 2005 the Chairman of the CA, Ian Vincent, presented him with this award. Sadly he was not able to play much croquet at the new grounds, having suffered a stroke just a few months after we started playing there. But what a legacy he has left to the croquet world and especially to us at Pendle & Craven Croquet Club. We give grateful thanks for having known John and urge you all to play more and more croquet and to enjoy your croquet because that is what John would have wanted most. He will be sadly missed.