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David Maugham won the North of England Championship

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North of England Championship – 28th-30th August

Brian Storey presents the trophy to David Maugham

David Maugham won the North of England Championship at Bowdon, beating Mark Suter +20tp, +14tp, +5tp in the final. Full results are on Croquet Scores and in the Rankings.

The field of 16 included 15 minus players, 7 of whom were -2 handicaps or better, and the hoops were all set to just under 1/32″ in averagely firm ground. The weather was fine all weekend.

The first round went with seeding, as did the second (except for David Maugham beating Mark Avery), but in the semis Mark Suter beat James Death and David Maugham beat Alan Giraud – both in 3 straight games. In the final David shot well and made very few errors, so despite Mark playing well David was able to win 3-0.

A highlight of the event was James Death completing 7 peels of a nontuple against Michael Sandler – with the straight penult peel bouncing out (from about 9 feet slightly angled). Quite an achievement given the tight hoops. Surely someone will soon be the first to achieve this feat in a ranking game. Also of note was Alain Giraud’s 2nd ever sextuple – the only one in the event.

In the plate knockout, Ian Lines unexpectedly won +1 from 4 v 4 back after Sam Murray pegged out two balls, and then Ian beat James Death +26tp 7th turn in the final.

On the Saturday evening everyone enjoyed fish and chips at the club, and on Sunday there was an excellent dinner at the Griffin to celebrate Alison’s birthday.

The trophies were presented by Bowdon Club President Brian Storey, and thanks were giving to Bowdon for hosting the event in these difficult times and to Alan Mayne for preparing the top quality lawns and for setting the hoops so well.

Paddy Chapman Wins Bowdon Croquet Advanced Again

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Paddy Chapman won the Bowdon Advanced Weekend 1st June 2014

 

Paddy Chapman receiving the Peterson Cup from Bowdon President, Colin Irwin
Paddy Chapman receiving the Peterson Cup from Bowdon President, Colin Irwin

Sixteen keen players made their way to Bowdon for the June Advanced Weekend, which usually doesn’t generate too many surprises, with 8 players seeded – but things were rather different in 2014. Over dinner on the Friday night, Debbie raised a toast to her table, hoping that the four of them would be the semi-finalists. By tea time the next day David Maugham, James Hopgood and Ian Lines had all told her never to make such a toast again. The first to drop was Dave to an in form local Barry Keen, who very nearly finished his TP before Dave had made a hoop. A three ball ending gave the audience something to watch but Dave left Barry too many shots and he eventually hit the peg to win +15. Ian followed Dave out of the main event a few minutes later, losing to a faultless Barry McKenzie (handicap 6) who said it was his best game ever. James made it to round two before he fell to a TP from David Walters, whilst Debbie was trounced by Paddy Chapman in a short 40 minutes.

Paddy continued to crunch up his opponents and beat Brian Storey in the semi-final +26tp, +26tp. Ten month old baby Oliver watched on with approval. The other semi-final was a closely fought best of 3 between David Walters and Andrew Winn – Andrew eventually winning -26tp, +25tp +17, to reach his first final of a 16 player CA knockout tournament and so win his CA Silver Medal.

David Maugham with Plate event prize
David Maugham with Plate event prize

It was a shame that Andrew left his ten month old son at home – if he had brought little Benji along we could have had a simultaneous match of the babies on the practice lawn whilst their fathers battled in the final. Andrew hit in well but Paddy’s defensive leaves didn’t give Andrew much to play with and Paddy won in three straight games +25tp, +17tp, +20tp to retain the title for the 4th year in succession.

The Plate event, which was a little stronger than usual, was contested in the super-advanced final between James Hopgood and David Maugham. James got to 1 back early, but Dave got in and almost finished an sxp, before eventually winning +20.

Other games of interest in the Plate included Barry Keen’s error free 10th turn +17 win against Ian Lines, and Mark Ormerod completing his first tpo for 34? years – which unfortunately turned into an otp after a slight mishap at 4 back on a three ball break to win. Mark also almost beat Dave after starting on hoop 1 v 1 back in a 2 ball endgame, just losing -3tpo.

Our thanks to the Bowdon club for their terrific hosting of the event: good lawns, dry sunny weather and really superb catering.

David Maugham Wins North of England Championship

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David Maugham won the North Of England Championship

Despite a dreadful forecast predicting torrential rain, 18 brave croquet players turned up to contest this year’s North of England Championship at Bowdon. Fortunately, the rain largely confined itself to overnight and the lawns maintained an easy 10 seconds throughout. The first day saw some seeds fall – Ian Lines lost to an ever improving Robert Wilkinson, who then went on to beat Marcus Evansin the quarters. Meanwhile Chris Williams had a good run beating James Hopgoodin the quartersto make his first championship semi-final.
Unfortunately, the golden oldies beat the up and comers and Keith Aiton and David Maugham won through to set up the same final as seen for the last three years, with David triumphing +25tp, +11tpo, -26sxp, +10 to record his record eighth win at this event.
Meanwhile the plate was being enjoyed by many, with excellent form being shown by Gabrielle Higgins with 5 triples over the weekend. Sam Murray also did well, making the plate draw and dropping his handicap from 1.5 to 0.5 in one go. In an early game James Hopgood finished a sextuple despite it going sufficiently wrong in the middle that Ian Lines said he’d eat his hat if it finished – an edible hat was duly created and eaten to the delight on onlookers. The final of the plate saw James Hopgood beat David Goacher +26tp in quick time – James had a train to catch!
Martin Granger Brown presented the Faulkner Cup to David and the Tollemache Plate to James. He also thanked Christine Irwin and her team of helpers for the magnificent catering, Alan Mayne for the excellent lawns, and Barry Keen and Colin Irwin for setting the lawns and hoops.

It also emerged at the presentation that David and Keith had agreed that the first three games of the final would simultaneously constitute the completion of the final of the Eastern Championship, held over from Wrest Park where Keith was 2-0 up when rain stopped play, and so Keith won the Easterns+26sxpin the fifth (not sure how that will go into the rankings).

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