Scottish Croquet Association

Scottish Open 2005

16-17 July 2005, Meadows

The Scottish Open Championship was won by Jonathan Kirby, who beat David Openshaw -9, +26tp, +16tp in the final.  The 11 competitors also included a number of other minus players including Chris Dent, Dave Nick, Bob Burnett, Ian Lines and Jenny Williams, as well as Jonathan Bowen from Canberra.  This was apparently the strongest field of competitors at a Scottish croquet tournament since the Home Internationals were played in Glasgow in 1992.

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Middle Bisquers 2005

Saturday 2 July dawned bright and warm.  An air of uncertainty and anticipation pervaded the capital.  Crowds soon started flocking to the Meadows.  Eight hundred coaches arrived from every corner of the country.  Helicopters hovered overhead.  Police, politicians, prelates and people of all walks of life, over two hundred thousand in total, created a carnival atmosphere.  It was the first scheduled day of the 2005 Middle Bisquers.

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Summer Weekend 2005

9-10 July 2005, Glasgow

The field of battle was Kelvingrove.  (Not Gleneagles, where this tournament used to be held up to 1998, but which then converted its lawns into a maze and turned itself over to non-croquet events.  Perhaps croquet was thought too contentious for such visitors as the G8 leaders who met there this month: they would have to decide whether to play US or International Rules for a start...)  The weather was warm.  The handicaps were nicely spread out across the range from 3 to 20 with only one duplication.

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Meadows Open 2005

25-26 June 2005, Meadows

The original plan for the Meadows Open was a complete block with all the eight entrants playing each other in seven rounds of games.  Then it was discovered, fortunately before the event, that Joe Lennon had entered but had been omitted from the list by mistake - so the format changed to a modified block, still with seven rounds but with each of the nine players having one bye and playing against six of the eight possible opponents.  (This entails one round containing only three games instead of four.  See David Appleton's article Some designs for tournaments in the 2004 SCA Handbook.)  Then on Saturday morning Martin Stephenson did not appear and we were back to a complete block of eight - but with one game, between Bruce Rannie and Brian Murdoch, left till after the seventh round instead of being played in the first round, since by the time the reorganising was done it was too late to play it immediately.

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