Scottish Croquet Association

Summer Weekend 2015

4-5 July 2015, Kelvingrove

If Kelvingrove were in another country the Foreign Office would have issued an advisory for travellers "Beware of Bandits".

17 players competed in the Summer Weekend Handicap competition with handicaps ranging from -½ (Campbell Morrison and John Surgenor) to 20 (Brian Cosford and Lyn Gilpin) and, as the opening sentence suggests, the low bisquers suffered with the six lowest handicaps losing a massive 31 games out of 40 played against the rest of the field, often with bisques left standing. No doubt the handicap committee will be looking at the results and, hopefully, adjusting some more handicaps.

As 9.30 drew near the rain was still falling heavily and two of the lawns had standing water but the rain stopped in time and games started on two lawns. The excellent drainage had the third lawn playable after 10 minutes with the final lawn dry enough 10 minutes after that.

Like the previous weekend the lawns were due to close by 6.00 both nights so manager Alan Wilson had decided to play 18 point games with time limits of 2 hours 30 minutes plus 3 minutes per bisque, resulting in Joe Lennon finishing his first game +18 against John Surgenor in only 32 minutes. John then had to wait around an hour for Brian Clark to arrive for the late start.

Thereafter games finished fairly rapidly with wins for Janice Duguid, David Houston, Roger Binks, Chris Martin, Richard Sparrow, Campbell Morrison and Alan Wilson against Charles Henderson, Brian Durward, Hamish Duguid, Brian Cosford, Bill Strachan, Jane Morrison and Lyn Gilpin.  By the end of the day only Roger Binks and Richard Sparrow were undefeated on 3 wins with Roger's game against Brian Cosford pegged down. The short games combined with easy conditions meant that 31 games had been completed with 2 pegged down overnight suggesting that full length games would have been fine.   Campbell almost pulled off a fourth turn quad against Chris Martin:  ending with a straight triple, peelee hit the wire at rover after a peeling attempt from a yard or so north of the peg.

The overnight leaders were Richard, Roger, Joe, David and Chris so the first games on Sunday saw Joe beating Richard and David winning against Chris. In the latter game, despite giving David a bisque after his handicap had been cut from 12 to 9, and David choosing to send balls close to the corners after time was called, Chris managed to pick up a break and very nearly tied the game, an approach at 2b being too tentative and resulting in an angled hoop which he failed. Definitely "one to watch". Games continued rapidly and Alan found it hard work trying to put games on, play and record scores - another reason full length games might have been better!

David continued to win and the game between Roger and Joe became critical. If Roger won his record would be similar to David's and a game between them would decide the overall winner. A win for Joe would put Joe and David level but they had already played. Thinking the game would finish fairly quickly, as Roger seemed well ahead, Alan asked David to wait so he could play Roger. Needless to say, the game didn't finish quickly and time was getting short. Most players had played enough but Campbell volunteered to give David another game, although they had played already, leaving Alan to find a game for the winner of Joe and Roger, to give them a chance of winning. Joe won and only Alan was prepared to play him but there was only about an hour and a half left. Joe then polished off the game +18 in 22 minutes while David was beating Campbell by the same score albeit over a much longer time.

Ideally David and Joe would have played off but, by the time Joe had finished his game against Roger, there wasn't enough time left for a game between two middle handicaps with only 1 bisque between them, and games had to finish to count.

So who won? As Alan had a slightly better record than Campbell, Joe gained 3 points while David only 2 so Joe won with David as runner up. Unfortunately the trophy was not available so Alan presented Joe with a paper cup and a chocolate cake from Brian Durward.

Alan Wilson

Results

Handicap changes:

David Houston 10 to 9
Joe Lennon 11 to 10