Author: Andy Loakes

On Saturday 5th October, a team from CPCC competed in Division 4 of the South West Federation Autumn short croquet tournament at Budleigh Salterton. The CPCC team was Fran Ralli, Ann Munton, Simon Munton and Chris Williams. (Chris was a guest player from Glamorgan as CPCC had difficulty in fielding a full team).

There were 4 teams in Division 4 (Bath Buns, CPCC B, Nailsea and Budleigh Salteron Mallets) and the format was 3 rounds of all play all. After these rounds CPCC were in the lead with 9 wins. There was then a play off between CPCC and the Mallets who were the second placed team.

At the end of the day CPCC took the trophy having won 11 out of their 16 games. Many thanks to our guest player Chris who won all of his games.

This year, CPCC’s Short Croquet team came top of their block which meant they had to compete against Bath in the final.

This took place on Sunday 29th September, with the CPCC team (David Milford, Simon Dunk, Fran Ralli and Simon Munton) being the home team and Bath the away team. As the final took place in Bath, being host to them on their own lawns felt a little strange!

After the first round the score was 2 all, but by lunch CPCC were trailing by 3 games to 5. After the third round CPCC were trailing by 5 games to 7. To win outright, CPCC needed to win all 4 games of the last round, but only succeeded in winning 2 games meaning that Bath were the victors by 9 games to 7.

Interestingly, although CPCC lost the match, they did score more hoops than their opponents (158 to 154). Many thanks to David and Fran for stepping in at short notice.

We all remember The Thriller in Manila and The Rumble in the Jungle. Well, today we hosted the 2024 South West Federation High Handicap final, and it turned out to be an epic.

After a full season’s competition Swanage and Llandaff croquet clubs had topped their respective leagues and The Showdown in Peasedown was on!

Remarkably three of our four lawns were playable after the recent rains. The standard of play was excellent and there was much tactical discussion, especially in the doubles games.

After a full day’s competition the score was a tantalising 10-10. Something had to break the deadlock and a final doubles game was decided upon. The crowd (there’s rarely a crowd at croquet) was riveted. This is as exciting as croquet gets!

Swanage commendably won the decider 7-4 and therefore are crowned the 2024 High Handicap champions. Here are the two exhausted teams (Llandaff on the lleft and Swansea, right).

Many thanks to Nigel for busily reffing the match and Des/David/Mark for setting up the hoops. Also Fran and Sue for cake and tea-making.

We recently welcomed Peasedown Cubs to our grounds for a sunny evening of archery.

No lawns were harmed, and a fun time was had by one and all.

Towards the end of each season are the “Eights”. Eights refers to tournaments where top players compete in groups of eight , based on their ability.  Croquet England run three Eights, appropriately named the First, Second and Third Eight

Colin was accepted into the Third Eight, played at Nailsea over three days. He just missed out on the main tournament, winning three of his qualifying matches out of seven and taking one game in three more.  On the final day he went on to win the plate event (or bowl as they called it) for places 5-8.  This is no mean feat.

After a summer (?) of frenzied activity and sporting fun playing the heats in the internal tournament, we can now announce the finalists. They will be playing on 12th October – more details to follow.

      GC Level Singles:  Andy v Colin

      GC Handicap Singles:  Ann v Trish N

      GC High Handicap Singles: Chris v Simon M

      GC Level Doubles:  Andy & Nigel v Mark & David

      GC Handicap Doubles: Phil & Marilyn v Trish and Jill

      AC Singles:  Simon D v Mark

      Short Croquet: Colin v Simon M

Congratulations to all!

Andy and Colin were in the Somerset team who last weekend won the Division 1 Inter-County Championship at Southwick. This was the first time Somerset had won in five years and broke a run of Nottinghamshire dominance.

Twelve counties were represented in the competition, with four to six players in each team. Every county played every other county and each round consisted a doubles game and two singles games. On day one we played six matches and won five of them, only losing narrowly to Essex. On day two we won our first four matches, setting up a final ‘winner-takes-all’ encounter with mighty Nottinghamshire, the best team on paper and losers of just one match themselves.

Colin and Andy played really well in the doubles, consistently clearing from distance and successfully jumping to take the win. Meanwhile, on the adjoining lawn, Rachel Gee (former ladies world champion) and her husband Will, a ferociously hard-hitting international-standard player, were playing David Goacher and Dom Aarvold respectively. Dom pulled off a fantastic win (7-4) against Will and so the trophy was ours.

This year the Level Play team have been struggling in the Premier League, having won promotion last year. It’s proved to be tough and our match against Bristol CC on Tuesday 13th August was no exception. Bristol, still in contention to win the league, fielded a strong team. The match was played in a fantastic spirit as many of the players knew each other and, most importantly of all, we managed to finish before the forecast rain. The final score was Bristol 14, CPCC 6. So, we unfortunately finish bottom of our league and now face the prospect of relegation back to our natural home in the Level Pay (North) League. The silver lining is there will be less widespread travel to our matches next season.

As ever, todays biggest challenge was to find an interesting photo to accompany this article. On two separate occasions the black ball got stuck in the hoop it was trying to run! When the hoops are tight, 1/32nd of an inch clearance either side of the ball, and on hot days this is not as unusual as you might think. It is often the black ball that sticks as it is thought it absorbs more heat and therefore expands slightly more than other balls. In our case the ball was found to be very slightly oval because it could run the hoop cleanly, but when turned it stuck fast. Colin, whose ball it was, happily blamed the “egg-shaped ball” for all his previous unsuccessful shots!

On both occasions the referee was called and the hoop was re-set and the shot re-played.

On Tuesday 6th August CPCC Handicap A Team hosted Bath for a closely fought match in which CPCC narrowly lost 10.5 to 9.5 hoops. However, the loss was in fact a brilliant victory! For the Camerton & Peasedown team finish the season atop their league. Congratulations! They will probably now progress to play another league-topping team in the South West region. Their next opponents are as yet unknown, but the team of Ann, Marion (capt), Phil, Jill S, Charles (empty chair – went home before photo!), Nigel and Jill P should fear no-one!

Saturday 27th July brought excellent weather and our summer BBQ.

Fran had also devised fiendishly clever croquet-themed games involving running exaggerated double-width hoops to finish in a specified area – not as easy as it looks.

Another game involved knocking over wooden targets for points. The further away the target, the more points were scored.

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… and even a game of ‘proper’ croquet broke out

… followed by the all-important barbecue itself.

A day of fun, frolics and friendship was had by one and all. To be repeated!