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All England Regional Final

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All England Handicap North West Area Final by Peter Wilson (4/9/07)

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16 players entered this 5-round Swiss tournament representing Bowdon, Southport, Huddersfield, Bury, Pendle, Woodhall Spa and Fylde on 1/2 September at Pendle. At the eleventh hour an injury prevented Ashby from sending a representative and a reserve from Southport was called in.

On Saturday short spells of sunshine broke through the cloudy gloom throughout the day. The lawns, now settling into their third year, played well. Bronze merit awards were achieved by Justin Brightmore from Bury and Francois Garcia from Bowdon. At the end of the third game Mel Foster and Robert Wilkinson had both won three games and so they met on Sunday morning.

Robert beat Mel and won a silver award in the process putting him as the only player on 4/4 however a group of four players were close on his heals with 3/4.

The final round saw several players in contention for the 3 places on offer in the Roehampton Final. The draw threw up a magnificent final round game – David Eckford from Woodhall Spa (the current holder) who got to peg and peg against Robert on 1 and 3. Robert got in and took a ball to peg and made a good leave. David missed and Robert was off again with another all round break and peg out to take the outright tournament win and trophy. Melanie Foster (Southport) and Andrew Webb (Pendle) won their respective games to take the remaining places.

Five players tied for fourth place. The reserve list in tie break order J. Dennis, J Guthrie, S Cooper, F Garcia (All Bowdon) and D Eckford (Woodhall Spa).

The three winners travelling to the national final being Robert Wilkinson, Melanie Foster and Andrew Webb.

During the tournament any player could be drawn against any other player providing they had not already played each other. Bowdon sent 5 representatives and yet, in none of the five rounds, was a Bowdon player matched against another. What are the chances of that?

Ailsa Lines Wins Everything

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Ailsa Lines won the entire Bowdon Northern Week! by John Wastell (27/07/07)

At the Northern Week at Bowdon, Ailsa Lines won the ‘A’ Class event, the Advanced Doubles (with Richard Griffiths) and the Handicap Doubles (with John Saxby).

The ‘B’ Class winner was Alan Mayne and ‘C’ Class champion was Liz Webb.

Bury Crash Out at Ashby

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Longman Cup- Ashby beat Bury 5-2 by Tim King (24/07/07)

Richard Sanville (11) & Geoff Ellott (16) beat Malcolm Hardman (14) & Graham Saunders (16) +13; Tim King (4.5) lost to Justin Brightmore (11) -14; Jeremy Staley (10) beat Paul Kenworthy +4(T); King beat Kenworthy +9; Staley lost to Brightmore +22; Sanville beat Hardman +3(T); Ellott beat Saunders +3.

The seven game format proved, as so often, to provide an exciting day of croquet and the Ashby courts once again demonstrated excellent drainage properties with having no ill effect from recent downpours, although slightly less grass would have been ideal. The weather co-operated and the participants only endured a very few spots of rain. During the day, Brightmore played the best croquet for Bury and when he won in the afternoon, this took Bury back to one behind at 2-3. All the attention turned to the matches of Sanville-Hardman and Ellott-Saunders both on the same court and with plenty of changes of innings. Saunders was in good shape, having built a strong lead of nine hoops with both balls on rover. Ellott, however, began finally to discover some form and claw back, although Saunders did manage the first of his rover hoops. Meanwhile, Sanville had established a lead but Hardman began his recovery. For twenty minutes or so, Bury began to look good for a victory from behind. Ellott though sealed the win for Ashby despite being pegged out and a little later time ran out for the Hardman recovery to give a slightly generous scoreline for Ashby. In the quarter final, Ashby will play Fylde.

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