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St Albans Croquet Club
2019 Club Tournaments
Club Tournaments
The club runs four tournaments open to all members with handicaps of 20 or less, all played on handicap.
The Verulam Cup, 26 point, played on the full lawn with a three hour time limit.
The Kitson Cup, 18 point, played on the full lawn with a two hour time limit.
The Mahoney Shield, 14 point, played on a half lawn.
Speed Croquet, a one day doubles tournament played on half lawns with 30 minute time limits for each side.
Speed Croquet
Roger Bowman organised two speed croquet tournaments on Saturday May 25th 2019 and Saturday August 31st 2019. The tournament is place as progressive doubles (ie. a different partner in each game), handicap, 14 point half lawn games. Each pair has a limited time to play all their shots, in a similar way to speed chess.
Charity One-Ball
Jon Palin writes:
The Croquet Association holds an annual one-ball croquet tournament each year to raise funds for charity, with heats at member clubs before a national final. We held a St Albans heat for the first time on 28th April 2019 with Barbara, Geoff, Heather, Jon, Leo and Roger taking part.
The one-ball format leads to much shorter games and with three games on the lawn at one time we managed to complete five rounds (all play all) in just over three hours.
Roger and Geoff were both unbeaten after the first four rounds before meeting in the final round. They had a close fought match, level at hoop 6; then Roger built a lead before Geoff pulled back after repeatedly hitting in from distance. In the end, Roger's long peg-out gave him victory by the smallest possible margin, +1
Heather finished third and will represent St Albans in the National final as neither Roger or Geoff can attend.
Thanks to the players who collectively donated £80 to Alzheimer's Society.
Roger pegging out
The Final was at Surbiton Croquet Club on 10th May. Heather writes:
The Final was a great day and I felt guilty that I was the one who was enjoying it when other players deserved to be there rather than me!
There were 42 players, 3 pairs on each of Surbiton's lovely lawns. We were allocated an opponent, found a free space on a lawn and played. My first game was against a lady, 20 handicap ,but a good GC player, from Bowden! With all her bisques she won, as did the next three players. However, a good lunch cheered me up and with renewed determination against players with fewer bisques, I won the next four games. In one game I managed an 8 hoop two ball break, narrowly missing out on the bottle of champagne for the longest break! The whole event was organised by Kevin Carter and raised £6,800 for this year's charity, The Alzheimers Society.
Thank you to Jon for suggesting it and for organising our heats.
I would recommend it to all and hope that we will participate again next year, and perhaps raise more enthusiasm and money to be able to send more than one player to the final.
The Verulam Cup Full lawn, 26 point, 3 hour time limit
The draw:
Block 1 Stuart, Andrew, Stephen and Heather
Block 2 Geoff, Roger, Chris, AN Other
Winner Chris Frost Runner up Stuart Stafford
The Kitson Cup Full lawn, 18 point, 2 hour time limit
The draw (all play all) Andrew, Stephen, Derek, Roger, Heather
Winner Stephen Mills
The Maloney Shield Half lawn, 14 point
The draw:
Block 1 David Levy, Stuart, Claire Geoffrey
Block 2 Leo, Sarah, Stephen
Winner Stuart Stafford Runner up Stephen Mills
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