Scottish Croquet Association

Edinburgh Tournament 2012

13-18 August 2012, Fettes College

The Edinburgh Tournament got off to an unusually depleted start on the morning of Monday 13 August 2012, with only four games in play - which had the benefit that none of them had to be double-banked.  This held true throughout the day, though the number of games increased to five later on.  The scarcity of players was due to a very low entry of 11 players in the handicap singles event and the fact that two of these were not available on Monday morning.  The lawns were more populated on later days of the week as the other events in the tournament came into play, but only Wednesday's doubles, with 12 pairs, made full use of the space available.

Court 1, the infamous "swamp" by the sight screens, was not in use this year because the ground was too wet, but courts 2 to 5 were set out in their traditional places, and a new court 6 was laid out on the south side of the cricket field, in front of the pavilion; this arrangement seemed to work well.

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Walker Cup 2012

4 August 2012, Meadows

With eight entrants, this year's Tournament was run as a three-round knockout of eighteen point games, plus extra non-counting games amongst those knocked out. A time limit of 2 hours 15 minutes, with an additional 3 minutes per net bisque difference between the opponents, was set for each game.

Interestingly, in the first round games, all the games finished within the allotted time. This proved not to be the case in the remaining 8 games, with 7 of those going to time.

Jola, Ruth, Brian and Alistair had wins in round one and Ruth and Alistair in round two. The final, between Ruth and Alistair, was closely contested throughout and when time was called it was Ruth who was in play. Believing the game to be tied at that point, Ruth mistakenly thought she could peg out her forward ball, thus going one ahead and leaving Alistair with a long roquet attempt and only 3 balls remaining. As it happened, Ruth had miscalculated and was already one ahead and as Alistair was to miss with his attempted roquet, Ruth went on to be the worthy winner of the Tournament.

Hamish Duguid

Wilkinson Sword 2012

5 August 2012, Kelvingrove

The Wilkinson Sword inter-club doubles competition was planned for Sunday the 15th of July at Alexandra Park, but was actually played three weeks later on one of the newly and beautifully rebuilt bowling greens at Kelvingrove - the first SCA event to be played there after the upgrading work (and, as it turned out, the only one played there in 2012).

As in the previous four years, there were three pairs competing, from the Glasgow, Edinburgh and Meadows Clubs; and as in the previous three years it was the Meadows team of Jamieson Walker and Jola Jurasinska who ended up holding the Sword.

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Stuart McKendrick Trophy 2012

29 July 2012, Lauriston Castle

The Sunday of the 2012 Stuart McKendrick Trophy had some of the best weather in July.  Unfortunately, this only meant that it didn't rain very much, patches of blue sky could be glimpsed on a few occasions, and there were periods when it was almost, but not quite, warm enough to play in just a T shirt.

Preparations for the tournament were delayed by problems finding hoop holes, and making sure that all the hoops were actually runnable, and it was not until around 2:15 that the five half lawns were ready for play.  The delay, though, was perhaps just as well since there was a steady trickle of arrivals right up until then!

There were 15 players in all, half a dozen from the Meadows club, and the rest from the Edinburgh club (though it should be said that not all of them had actually been expecting to play in a tournament, although they joined in anyway!).

Read more: Stuart McKendrick Trophy 2012