Scottish Select v Switzerland 2012
30 June and 1 July 2012, Meadows
This was the first encounter between the Scottish and Swiss teams since 2007, when the Swiss had won 11-9 in Geneva. (After that a triennial schedule had been agreed, but Switzerland had not managed to raise a team in 2010.) It broke new ground in two other ways besides the timing: the inclusion of Golf Croquet as well as Association Croquet (because of a shortage of Swiss AC players), and the participation of a Scottish-resident player in the Swiss team - namely Bryan Sykes, who could claim qualification for Switzerland because his father had been born there.
The three who travelled from Switzerland on this occasion were Norman Eatough, Dave Underhill and Desmond George - the fact that Des played only Golf Croquet being balanced by Bryan's playing only Association. Arrayed against them were five Scottish players, of whom four took part in each round of games: Bill Spalding, Alan Wilson, Fergus McInnes, Jamieson Walker and Hamish Duguid. The format gave Jamieson time off on Saturday to prepare for hosting the match dinner that evening, and gave Fergus a break in the middle of each day to set out and clear away lunch; it also meant that each player on the Swiss side met four different opponents in the singles, while avoiding any extreme mismatch on handicaps. The order of play on each day had two singles rounds sandwiching one doubles round, with each round consisting of single AC games and best-of-three GC contests - except that one GC match in the final round was shortened to a single 19-point game to let Norman catch a train. Saturday's results were evenly balanced, leaving the score at 5-5 overnight, but on Sunday the Scots won 8 out of 10 to make the final result 13-7 to the home side.