Chester, 16-17th September 2023

Anne Alvey from Bury is the 2023 CA All England AC H/C Champion, on this its centennial year joining a select group of women who have won this competition.

In a nerve shredding final game, Anne survived a fierce comeback by her opponent to end the finals having won four out of five games. This was enough to give her victory as one of two players on four wins; but an earlier crucial head-to-head victory by 13-10 on time, tipped the balanced in her favour.

Her victory was cemented by outstanding handicap play on the first day when she won all three of her games against strong opposition and, following a wobble in the her fourth game, she stood firm with determined play under intense pressure in her final game to seal the title.

For her efforts Anne holds the splendid trophy for the year and Bury Croquet Club a beautiful shield, presented to the CA by the New Zealand Croquet Council in 1956 for the Club of the current champion.

Robin Tasker

Tournament Manager

(The Finalists. From left to right: Sean Doherty, Simon Tuke, Gareth Hobby, Bernie Phillips, Anne Alvey, Bryan Harral, Patricia Mulcahy, Clive Moncrieff)

3 of the 4 eights were hosted by clubs in our area last weekend –  Presidents at Bowdon, Chairman’s at Southport and Treasurers at Pendle.

Our own Neil Adams won the Tankard at his first invitation

and Jack Good also swept all aside in the non-eight Selectors to take the title on his first showing.

Giles Pepperell (Llanfairfechan) along with David & Sandra Cornes (Crake Valley) made the (very) long trip to Budleigh Salterton having been selected for the Croquet Association’s prestigious National 3rd Golf Croquet Eights tournament over the August bank holiday weekend.  Going into the tournament Giles was ranked 2nd, David 5th and Sandra last (8th). The format was “all play all” best of three games to be followed by a knockout. 

The quality of the the lawns and the player opposition was extremely high and Giles did not quite perform to his usual (very high) standards. He did, however, achieve being the only player to beat top seed Diana Wilson in the 7 block matches. David, however, managed to win all 3 matches (2 games to nil) on Saturday before losing narrowly in his other group matches. Sandra excelled with 3 match victories, including wins against experienced, local players Louise Smith (Sidmouth) and Marc Colson (Budleigh).

The outcome was that David had to play England’s player Diana Wilson (Roehampton) in the semi-finals. A closely fought contest, which took over 4 hours to complete, saw Diana win the first game 7-6. In game two David came from 4-6 down and used his developing AC skills to execute a superb cut rush over 15 yards to promote partner (Red) ball before running hoop 12 (ahead of Diana’s perfectly positioned Black ball). An extraordinary run of shots at 13, eventually saw David run a difficult 4 yarder to take the match into a decider.  Again, the third game was extremely close with David coming through 7-6.

In the Final, David played Phyllis Court’s Rick Lilley. Rick played solidly and took the first game 7-4. David responded with a 7-5 reply. The decider was also close but David had the misfortune to peel Rick through Hoop 10. Rick finished the match on the next hoop at 8.20pm, with the light faded to an extreme, to take the trophy.  

In the Shield Sandra progressed through to the final only to be beaten by Marc Colson 3-7, 6-7.

The Federation wishes David well in his selection to represent England in the forthcoming WCF Golf Croquet Over 50 World Championship in Bunbury, Perth. For Giles, and Neil Adams (Westmorland) there is a reasonable to good chance of National B-level success at Eastbourne, this weekend. 

The photos show the line up of players at the start of day 3 (Sandra 2nd left, Giles third and David fifth) and David looking on as Rick holds aloft the trophy with the evening dusk in the background.