Author: Andy Loakes

We have finally completed phase 2 of the back door project. We had great fun putting this piece of grown-up Meccano together. Most of the horizontals are, well, horizontal, and don’t look too closely at the verticals. It was all a bit wobbly, but then when we tightened all the bolts up it became super-solid.

Phase 3 will be extending the patio slabs across towards the equipment shed – but that’s for another day … or two.

Why haven’t we done this before? The inaugural Thursday evening session was a great success. Colin and Andy arrived at 5pm, followed by nine others and play continued until 9pm. Despite the fact we stared in 30⁰C, lawns three and four were in partia-l and then full-shade and it became a very pleasant way to end the day.

On 30th June we welcomed 16 handicap 10+ players for our D-Level tournament. There was good representation from the Bath, Bradford-on-Avon and host club; others had travelled from Cornwall, Sussex, Oxfordshire and Somerset and several had lodged locally the previous night. The morning weather was absolutely perfect for being outdoors although some rain was forecast for later in the day. The group were welcomed to CPCC by the tournament manager, Nigel Wulko, and they were introduced to the day’s referees, Brain Wilson and David Richards. They started play in the usual format of four groups where All- Played All; the top two from each group going forward to play for the trophy and the bottom two going forward to play for the ’plate’. This produced a ranking for the day and therefore the distribution of those valuable points. The top eight players who went forward to the knock-out finals included CPCC’s Ray Cohen. Ray, who only started to play croquet in 2025, was playing in his first National tournament; a testament to the fact that croquet is an easy game to learn and that there are opportunities, within the game, to progress quickly to play in competitions. The event winner was Carole Gorvett from Bradford-on-Avon who very narrowly beat her Club companion, Monica Baker, by 7 hoops to 6. The ‘plate’ competition was won by our very own Angela Crofts. Just as play finished and the hoops were being lifted, the promised rain arrived. Good timing because by then the players were drinking tea and eating cake in the Club House ahead of the presentation of prizes; a great way to end an enjoyable day.

On Tuesday 9th June we hosted our annual C-Level tournament for players of handicap 7+. A field of 16 players, coming from as far away as Oxford, arrived on time, raring to get on the lawns in cold and windy weather. More than half of them had not taken part in these competitions before. Four groups of four played in the morning with the first two of each group going on to a “knockout” for a place in the National Final in September and the others doing the same for the “Plate”. The groups are selected over a range of ability using the National D Grade as the guide. Players appreciated the club’s top quality lawns and the day started well as the players “warmed” up on their dedicated lawn. Play had only just started when a fierce ice-cold shower, with a howling wind to go with it, prompted the players to rush in to put on their “wets”. However, it was the only bad weather that day and play continued at a reasonable rate. At the end of morning play, one player from each group had won 3 games, automatically taking them through to the knockout plus 4 of the runners up. As it happens, 3 of these players were CPCC members – did they have advantage knowing the lawns? After the first round they were still in the top four for the semi final so one of them had a good chance of winning the competition. The final was between 2 CPCC members, Phil Hendy and, a relatively new player, Jonathan Flatt. Phil had already beaten Jono, 7-5, in an earlier round so competition was fierce. The game started well for Phil and he was 3 up, but Jono kept his cool and pulled out some fantastic long shots to hit Phil’s balls away from scoring positions. The score reached 6 all (you need 7 to win), so the winner of the competition needed one more hoop. It was the end of the day and most of the players were watching the play. Jono won the 12th hoop so Phil had first shot up to Hoop 13, but he didn’t have a straight shot – he was impeded by a hoop. However, Jono did have an unimpeded shot and successfully sent his balls to fairly good positions to score the hoop, which he eventually did and the score was a win for Jono 7-6. CPCC took the first 3 places, 1st: Jonathan Flatt, 2nd: Phil Hendy and 3rd: Simon Munton Congratulations to all players. Jono will go on to the National Final in September.

Match report: CPCC HH team v Cardiff 5th June 2026

Five CPCC High Handicap players and referee Brian Wilson welcomed the six-strong Cardiff team to our lawns on Thursday 5th June. Despite an unpromising weather forecast, the weather was kind to us once again and we completed twenty games without interruption. After the first four rounds, the scores were level at 8-8, but we won the four remaining singles to run out winners by 12-8. Every CPCC player contributed wins to the scoresheet, with Peter Buchanan winning all 5 of his games. For Cardiff, David Palser and Peter Jones each had 3 wins.

EOn Saturday 23rd May four players from CPCC travelled to Broadwas for a match in the 5+ level play league. Fortunately most of the bank holiday traffic was travelling in the opposite direction and so the team arrived on time. No croquet lawn is completely flat or entirely free from imperfections. The lawns at Broadwas were grassy and in good condition. However the lawns were not completely level. This meant that our team had to get used to playing uphill where the ball didn’t go as far as expected, playing downhill where the ball overshot the hoop and playing across the slope where the ball executed a banana curve. The team adapted to the lawns quickly but the home team were more familiar with them.The Broadwas team went a couple of games ahead at the start of the day. After the first round the wins were shared between the teams but Broadwas managed to hold on to their lead. The end result was a loss for CPCC by 7 games to 9. Many of the games were very competitive. Of the 16 games played many of them were very close with 8 of them finishing with a score of 7 – 6. Although CPCC lost the team had an enjoyable day’s play with friendly people.

On Sunday 17th May the CPCC AC Federation team played their first match of the season against Kington Langley. The CPCC team consisted of Mark Godfrey-James, Colin Britt, Si Dunk and Simon Munton. As Kington Langley could only field 3 players, Si played in the morning and Simon in the afternoon.The morning session consisted of a doubles game (Colin and Si) and a singles game (Mark). CPCC lost the doubles game 17-18 but won the singles game 19-15.The afternoon session saw three singles games played. Mark won his game 26-15, Colin unfortunately lost 3-26 and Simon won 26-10.Overall CPCC won the day by 3 games to 2.

Colin (Capt.), Nigel, Mo, David x2 and Andy travelled to Bristol CC on Tuesday 12th May and had a successful day, eventually winning 12-8. It started out warm, then cold. Guess who was most excited with the win?

The Short Croquet team travelled to Glamorgan CC on Sunday, 10th May, on a very cold and windy day. Thermals and layers of clothing were a huge advantage.

The Handicaps of our team were equally matched to our opponents which was demonstrated in the result, which was a draw. Glamorgan fielded two young, up and coming players, who were very competitive and won all their games. They will go far in their Croquet careers.

Both Ann and Simon Munton won 3 out of 4 games.

Well done to the team for enduring the cold and persevering against a strongly motivated team.

CPCC team was David Richards, H 2Peel, Simon Munton, H 3.5, Ann Munton, H 6 and John Rowly, H 10.

NB In Short Croquet the Handicap tells you how many extra shots you have. A Peel means that you have to run your second ball through a hoop, in order, using your playing ball.

Mo Boys

Sadly CPCC A team lost today to a highly charged Bradford on Avon team with handicap 10 players playing like 6’s etc etc – we lost 9 – 3