Two teams from Nailsea took part in the Indoor Pairs Speed Croquet Tournament at RAF Innsworth, Gloucester, last weekend. There were ten teams competing, the others coming from Cheltenham (4), Bristol (2), Kenilworth and Southwick. Both Nailsea teams played well with all four players scoring five and six hoop breaks and at end of play on Saturday they were the only two teams with four wins out of four, their closest rivals being Southwick with three wins.

The two Nailsea teams played each other first thing Sunday morning and produced the match of the tournament. A cross-court take-off that rolled off the court let KRISS CHAMBERS in first. He scored one hoop, but on his approach to hoop two he played a delicate shot which rolled along the join between two carpets and missed its target. This let in IAN WILSON, who used just one bisque to go to the peg. PETER DYKE replied with a five-hoop break and a good leave. ROGER BROOKS missed the hit-in and KRISS used one bisque to score five hoops, but failed the mandatary peel. On his continuation shot he completed the peel on his partner's ball, hitting both balls to the boundary. However, ROGER had a bisque left to take his ball round to the peg and peg out both balls to win by three points.

In the final round ROGER and IAN had a covincing 14-point win over Kenilworth to win the tournament, but KRISS and PETER had only two chances against the Southwick team who were on superb form and finish third. The Southwick team came second with five wins. This was a huge improvement on last year's performance when Nailsea entered one team in the Inter-club Speed Doubles Tournament and finished last with no wins.

Results

1. ROGER BROOKS & IAN WILSON, 6 wins, beat Southwick +5, Bristol A +4, Cheltenham B +2, Cheltenham A +13, Nailsea B +3, Kenilworth +14.

2. Southwick, 5 wins, lost to Nailsea B -5, beat Cheltenham C +6, Cheltenham D +11, Cheltenham B +7, Cheltenham A +3, Nailsea A +12.

3. KRISS CHAMBERS & PETER DYKE, 4wins, beat Cheltenham B +3, Kenilworth +5, Cheltenham A +1, Bristol A +12, lost to Nailsea B -3, Southwick -12.

Full score sheet