Jon Carrington (Broadwas) won the GC ‘A’ Level Tournament at Bury beating Tony McCann (Backworth) in a tight match that played out at (7-5, 5-7, 7-5)
12 players were welcomed to Whitehead Park, Bury on a dull, rainy day which improved to be just dull but thankfully dry. The weather however, did nothing to dampen the spirits of the players, buoyed up by the now customary Bury bacon butties!
Day 1 started with play in the two blocks. In Block A, John Carrington (Broadwas) made excellent progress, winning all his 6 games. Tony McCann (Backworth) and Richard Leach (Bury) each had 3 wins and Martyn Seal (Llanfairfechan) had 2 wins thus making up four of the Quarter Final places.
In Block B, Tom Grievson (Chester) and Glynis Davies (Northampton) both with 4 wins, Michael Bilton (Gainsborough), with 3 wins and Sandra Cornes (Crake V) with 2 wins completed the rest of the line up for Quarter Final.
The Quarter Finals were 19-point games, of which, Jon Carrington v Sandra Cornes and Richard Leach v Glynis Davies were very close 10-9 and 10-8 respectively. Tony McCann beat Michael Bilton 10-3 and Martyn Seal beat Tom Grievson 10-6.
The weather on Sunday was perfect – blue skies, sunshine and very warm and another day of excellent play ensued.
The Semi Final games were played Best of Three, but Jon and Tony needed only two games each to secure their places in the Final. Jon beat Richard 7-5, 7-4 and Tony beat Martyn 7-1, 7- 4.
Sandra Cornes, Glynis Davies, Michael Bilton and Tom Grievson contested the Shield, where Sandra took 2 games from Glynis to win but Michael had to play a deciding game to defeat Tom. Michael Bilton progressed to win the Shield beating Sandra 7-3, 7-3.
David Cornes (Crake V), Graham Jowett (Crake V), Andrew Carpenter (Durham) and Bernard Lord (Bury) contested the Plate and David Cornes won all his games to take it.
The Final pitched the two best players of the weekend together and it proved to be a close, exciting match, thoroughly enjoyed by all those watching. Jon emerged victorious, beating Tony 7-5, 5-7, 7-5 to take the Cup.
Full results can be seen on https://croquetscores.com/2024/gc
Club Chairman Roy Spencer presented the winners with their trophies and thanked the players and their supporters for coming and the following for making the weekend such a success:
– Referee for both days – John Crossland
– Tournament Manager – David Barrett
– Admin and Croquet Scores -Simon Attwell and Sue Worth
– Refreshments – Gail Burnett and Barbara Duncan (both days) and help from Vi, Elaine, Helen A and Barbara E
– The Grounds Team, who did an excellent job preparing the lawns to a very good standard, after so much rain over the past few weeks and for setting up the lawns.
Report by Sue Worth
