Meadows Open 2013
22-23 June 2013, Meadows
James Hopgood won the Meadows Open, with 6 wins from 7 games, ahead of George Noble with 5 out of 7.
George was one of six visitors from Surbiton taking part in the tournament - all of them also being members of the Surbiton team that played a match here against the Meadows Club on the preceding day (won 7-5 by the home side).
As the final round of games began on Sunday afternoon, George and James were both on 5/6, George having beaten James earlier in the day but lost to Campbell Morrison on Saturday. If George beat his clubmate Ian Vincent in the last round, or James lost to Brian Murdoch, then George would be the winner (on who-beat-whom if not outright).
In fact James beat Brian +26TP, making the result of the other game critical, and this was a much closer game. George did the three peels of a triple, but didn't jump yellow high enough through rover to avoid hitting red, which had only just gone through in the previous stroke. He sent it close to the peg, made a roquet of nine or ten yards on Ian's black ball, and attempted a combination peg-out by bombarding red with blue, but this did not quite get red onto the peg, and he pegged yellow out, leaving Ian with an opportunity to catch up from hoop 2 and 4-back. Ian's finishing break had its scary moments, especially when he got very angled position at rover and had to play an excellent jump shot to run the hoop - but this he did to win +1 and deny George the Muffin Dish.
Ian finished the tournament in joint third place with 4/6, alongside Fergus McInnes and Jane Morrison.
http://www.croquetscores.com/2013/ac/meadows-open/meadows-open
Fergus McInnes