St Albans Croquet Club
This page gives the details of this years regional and national competitions that we are entering. For 2026 we are entering:
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The Longman Cup
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The Herts & Beds League
We're not eligible for the Secretary's Shield this year.
Longman Cup
This is a nationwide handicap inter-club tournament for teams of four with handicaps between 3.5 and 20. This is normally played with teams of four when one doubles and two singles are played in the morning and four singles in the afternoon.
St Albans won the Longman Cup in 2020.
Newport 5-2 St Albans - 5th May
Scores (St Albans first)
Roger Bowman(9) beat Mat Hardy(4) +3T
Stuart Stafford (9) beat Nick Jones (14) +1T
Brian Johns(8) and Roger White(14) lost to Alex Lake(6) and Fran Lambert(8) -7T
Brian Johns(8) lost to Mat Hardy(4) -5T
Roger Bowman(9) lost to Alex Lake(6) -17
Stuart Stafford(9) lost to Fran Lambert(8) -7T
Roger White(14) lost to Nick Jones(14) -3T
Herts-Beds League
This is a team tournament for the croquet clubs within the Herts-Beds area, in 2024 there are six teams playing. Matches are played on handicap, a combination of singles and doubles, between teams of three or four players depending on whether the match is being played at a club with one or more lawns.
The draw/table for 2026 is here. We were 2nd in 2025, 2024 and 2023 , and won in 2018 and 2019.
Letchworth 2-4 St Albans - 29th April
The team of Heather, Stephen, Brian and Roger travelled to Letchworth for our first match of the season. It seemed to take most people a while to get back into the swing of things, with all but one of the matches going to time and breaks being a rare commodity.
In the morning doubles, an hour in St Albans were well behind in both matches having run 3 hoops in total. However, a rare break by Brian and Stephen from hoop 4 to rover saw them pull out a lead which they maintained to the end, and Heather & Roger managed to pull out a one hoop advantage as time was called, so we were 2-0 up at lunch.
In the afternoon, Heather saw off Brian from Letchworth +10. Stephen's match was a lot closer, with both players failing to make an significant breaks, but a rare 3 hoop break towards the end, and good use of his half bisque when his opponent hit in saw Stephen win the game +4 in time, getting us over the winning line. Brian's and Roger's games both went to time with Brian nearly (but not quite) catching up his opponent on his last break.
Scores (St Albans names first)
Heather Bennett (2) & Roger Bowman (9) beat Brian Havill (1.5) & David Matthews (2) +1(T)
Stephen Mills (2.5) & Brian Johns (8) beat Keith Rhodes (3) & Stuart Haggett (11) +3(T)
Heather Bennett (2) beat Brian Havill (1.5) +10
Stephen Mills (2.5) beat David Matthews (2) +4(T)
Brian Johns (8) lost to Keith Rhodes (3) -1(T)
Roger Bowman (9) lost to Haggett (11) -9(T)
Northampton v St Albans - 3rd June
St Albans v Wrest Park - Date TBC
St Albans v Watford - Date TBC
Letchworth v Enfield - Date TBC
