Scottish Croquet Association

Summer Weekend 2011

2-3 July 2011, Alexandra Park

The players in this year's Summer Weekend were few enough to fit onto the top two lawns at Alexandra Park, being eight in number: Joe Lennon (handicap 11) and Robert Lay (12) from the host club, and from further east (Polmont and Edinburgh) Alan Wilson (3), Fergus McInnes (4), Jamieson Walker (10), Janice Duguid (10), Hamish Duguid (12) and Jola Jurasinska (16).

Everyone played three games on Saturday, with winners playing winners and losers playing losers, so that at the end of the day there was one player - Alan - with three wins, and one - Jola - with three losses.  (But it could easily have been different, as Jola's first game was against Alan, and she was only a millimetre short of running rover, with her other ball for the peg.)  Hamish had lost only to Alan, while Joe had lost only to Hamish, and Janice had lost only to Jamieson.  Alan and Fergus had each achieved a double peel finish: Alan against Jamieson, with one of Jamieson's bisques unused, and Fergus against Robert to obtain his only win of the day by a margin of just two points.

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European Team Championship 2011

23-26 June 2011, Cheltenham

The Scottish team of James Hopgood, Campbell Morrison and Martin Murray reached the final of the third WCF/FEC European Team Championship, where they lost narrowly to Jersey.  James had beaten Jersey's Tony Le Moignan 2-0 in the first association croquet match of the final, and Campbell had lost the golf croquet 3-0 to Matt Burrow; so the Championship hung on the AC match between Martin and Richard Griffiths, which stood at 1-1.  In the deciding game, after many changes of innings, a missed peg-out by Martin proved fatal, letting Richard in to win +1.

Full commentary on the final by Andrew Gregory is on the Croquet Association's website, in two parts: here and here.  Scotland's semi-final with Ireland was another close match, reported here.

Meadows Open 2011

25-26 June 2011, Meadows

The 11 players in this year's Meadows Open were organised in two blocks, with the lower-handicapped players distributed evenly between them.  The top two finishers in each block were to go into the semi-finals, while those coming third and fourth would play off amongst themselves, and no.5 in Block A was to play the fifth and sixth players in Block B.

The most notable upset in the block stage was a win by Jola Jurasinska (handicap 16) over Joe Lennon (11).  In the other block Jamieson Walker (9) came close to defeating Fergus McInnes (4), who had to play a big three-ball break after time was called (Jamieson having pegged out one of his own balls) to convert a seven-point deficit into a +4 on time win.  Fergus went on to beat Jane Morrison (2.5) and so finished at the top of Block A, while in Block B it was Bryan Sykes (3) who took the top spot, followed by Alan Wilson (3) who had lost only to Bryan.  In his game against Alan, Bryan did the three peels of a triple, but unfortunately ran into the peelee after rover and was unable to peg out in that turn.

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Middle Bisquers 2011

18-19 June 2011, Alexandra Park

Alan Wilson won this year's Middle Bisquers at Glasgow retaining the Adam Trophy but Bill Spalding took the plaudits with 2 triple peels.

Alasdair Adam had been forced to withdraw, but this still left 9 entrants, which was good to see after last year's competition was cancelled because of insufficient entries.

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