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Pendle Win 2007 Mary Rose

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Pendle & Craven win the Mary Rose Inter Club Trophy by John Filsak (07/10/07)

Heroic effort by Rob Essler in the deepening Wrest Park gloom won the Mary Rose trophy for Pendle and Craven in the final against Surbiton. Rob’s opponent, David Mooney had started off well, and was way ahead, but Rob crept back into contention. With David losing his so-far-reliable long hitting ability the game was Rob’s and the trophy Pendle’s by 4 games to 2. This also saved the manager the problem of having to finish off the pegged-down doubles in the dark (Pendle were ahead in it, but Surbiton had the innings).

Pendle got off to a good start in the morning. The doubles made slow progress, but John Filsak made light work of his game against Bob Stephens after Bob broke down at 2-back, leaving John an easy finish, and Liz Wilson battled her way from a long way down to beat Ian Parkinson. So Pendle were 2-0 up at lunch time. Liz was first to finish in the afternoon, dispatching Bob fairly rapidly. Peter Wilson’s game with Mary Knapp was neck and neck until Mary got in with a long hit to finish. John got off to a good start against Ian, but an uncharacteristic clang gave Ian the innings, and John’s ability to hit anything above 2 yards deserted him. So it looked as though Surbiton were going to level at 3-all, until Rob got going. The rest, as they say, is history. (Nasty cliche, but, hey, we won!)

Teams:
Pendle and Craven: Rob Essler (2), Peter Wilson (2.5), John Filsak (2.5, captain), Liz Wilson (3)
Surbiton: David Mooney (1), Mary Knapp (2, captain), Ian Parkinson (2), Bob Stephens (3.5)

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.

Colin Irwin Wins German Open

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Colin Irwin (Bowdon) won the 5th. German Open by Journe Vinnen at Hamburg (24/07/07)

This was the 4th. time that Colin dominated the Germans, winning three out of five games with a TP. Colin and Chris were happy to take the trophy – a carving of Croquet player in action – back to “it’s” place at their house. In the final Colin beat Martin Murray + 25 TP . Martin was not too unhappy to be the runner up since it was his best result in the Germans ever. Both of the finalists took part in every single German Open, a tournament to be played every two years since 1999. Places 3 and 4 were taken by Bruno Hess and Alexander Kirsten, both of them happy with their successfull participation (Bruno was a little bit happier though…).

With the prizegiving on Sunday a remarkable tournament ended: the sun shone over Saturdays games and allowed us to dine on the terras of Hotel Sullberg high up over the banks of Elbe river. Food and wines were delicious and maybee because of this beautiful evening everybody was shocked about Sunday mornings rain. Strings of rain poured out of a grey sky and soon all rain gear was soaked. Nevertheless the games went on and and after lunch the sun shone again and accompagnied us for the final stage of the tournament. Just after we finished prize giving a terrible thunderstorm that flooded hundreds of cellars in the western part of Hamburg made an lasting impression on the players.

The next German Open is scheduled for 2009 and we will do our best to offer another tournment with remarkable sportive and social aspects

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