Scottish Croquet Association

Scottish Golf Croquet Championship 2012

28-29 July 2012, Glasgow

The Scottish Golf Croquet Championship this year had an unprecedented number of players from outside Scotland - five from south of the border, although two of these (Fergus Thompson and Stuart Arthur) were qualified as Scottish by the WCF criteria.  They and the other three visitors - Freda Vitty, Jane Pringle and John Moore - were joined by four players from Edinburgh (Jamieson Walker, Fergus McInnes, Jola Jurasinska and James Hopgood) and just one, Bill Spalding, from the host club in Glasgow.

The tournament began with a block stage in which each of the 10 entrants played all the other nine.  This went quite quickly, with no games reaching the one-hour time limit, helped by the easy conditions with fairly wide and loose hoops and the availability of four lawns which meant that most games were single-banked.  The nine rounds were completed on the first day, with results broadly as expected from the rankings, the four highest-ranked players (James, Freda, John and Fergus Thompson) taking the top four places.  These four were entered into a two-round best-of-three knockout, to be played on the second day, with consolation games for the other players.

With less than a full day's play remaining after the rapid progress of the block stage on Saturday, the idea of a later start on Sunday (10am instead of 9:30) was suggested.  The manager put this to the vote, and a majority of players were in favour.  One player decided not to come back on Sunday when the decision was announced, and another also withdrew as she would have been travelling with him, leaving eight to reconvene on Sunday morning.

The original plan had been for those who were out of the knockout to play a flexible Swiss, with results from the block stage carried over, but on Sunday morning it was suggested that instead there should be a full playoff for all eight places, with best-of-three matches throughout.  This plan was adopted, and the matches were as follows.

In one semi-final James played Fergus Thompson, and won in straight games.  In the other, Freda was the straight-games winner over John.  The playoff for third and fourth places was the only match in the top half to go to a third game, with Fergus beating John at the 13th hoop in the decider.  The first game of the final between James and Freda was fairly close, going 7-5 to James, but he won the second 7-2, to retain the Walker Golf Croquet Bowl which he had won in the previous two years.

Meanwhile in the lower half Fergus McInnes and Stuart had had a quick match, with Fergus winning in straight games, and Jane and Bill had had a long one, in which Jane won the deciding hoop in the third game after a total of about two and a half hours.  Fergus then played Jane and won in the third game, while Stuart did better than his handicap of 7 would have predicted by beating Bill.

There ensued the presentation of the trophy, the consumption of tea and cakes at the table between the upper lawns, and the clearing of the clubroom to make way for a visiting group, and everyone was away by about 4pm.

Thanks are due to the Glasgow Club for hosting the championship, and in particular to Bill and Richard Sparrow for setting out the lawns, to Bill and Eleanor for putting up the manager on Saturday night and saving him some commuting, and to Eleanor for the delicious cakes.

Fergus McInnes

Results

Block stage:

Knockout stage (best-of-three matches):

James Hopgood beat Fergus Thompson 7-6, 7-3
Freda Vitty beat John Moore 7-5, 7-5

James Hopgood beat Freda Vitty 7-5, 7-2

Third/fourth place playoff:

Fergus Thompson beat John Moore 7-6, 5-7, 7-6

Consolation games (best-of-three for places 5 to 8):

Fergus McInnes beat Stuart Arthur 7-1, 7-5
Jane Pringle beat Bill Spalding 7-5, 5-7, 7-6

Fergus McInnes beat Jane Pringle 7-4, 3-7, 7-4
Stuart Arthur beat Bill Spalding 7-6, 3-7, 7-3