GC “C” Level Series at Camerton & Peasedown Croquet Club 11th June 2024
16 players arrived on a cold, blustery morning to play in Croquet England’s “C” Level Series Tournament. This is a National Tournament with the winner going through to a Final later in the year.
Morning play was in groups of four equally spread over handicaps 7-12. The three games were untimed and “double banked” but very slow, only finishing at about 14:00. The 1st and 2nd of each group went through to the quarter-finals and the others to a “Plate”. Roger Booth (Eynsham)was the only player to win all three of his games.
In the afternoon the games were timed to 60 minutes and played from opposite corners. This caused a bit of confusion at first, but with the help of the three referees proceeded successfully.
Jill Bateman (Cheltenham), Matthew Parsons (Bradford on Avon), Patricia Naish (Camerton & Peasedown) and Roger Booth then went through to the semi-final with Matthew and Roger qualifying for the Final. Untimed, they had a very competitive game. Matthew was 6-3 up and needed one more hoop to win the match, but Roger kept his nerve and managed to take the next three hoops. 6 all, this led to a very interesting last hoop. After much manoeuvring and decision making, Roger drew on his experience to finally run the hoop and win the Tournament.
Considering Matthew was playing in his first national tournament, he played extremely well to come second.
Jill Hanson (Charlton) won the plate.
From my observation, (with my Coach’s hat on) the “slow” play was not caused by taking too long to play a shot, but by the tactics used; mostly placing a ball close to the hoop in a good position, but with an opponent ball nearby so that it was cleared easily, but not far enough away. “Cannon fodder play”. This happened over and over again by each player, on one occasion for at least 15 mins! Action: when clearing, clear as far away as you can.
Report from Mo Boys
