Nailsea 3 Bristol 2

Nailsea Croquet Club had two very narrow wins over the weekend. First of all they beat Bristol in the LONGMAN CUP, a National Handicap Competition. Some Nailsea members had other commitments and the Club had to field a team with relatively high handicaps. Two of the Nailsea team had arranged to go to a concert in the evening and wanted to get away early, so an early start was arranged. However, the Nailsea team were disappointed that the captain of the Bristol team insisted on having no time limits. In the morning IAN WILSON and PAT LONG lost their doubles. PETER DYKE and JOHN WALLACE both played well and built up a commanding lead in their game, when it was decided to peg it down and start the afternoon games. JOHN WALLACE quickly won his singles with a convincing win, but the other two games were very close and each took over four hours to complete. PAT lost her singles by just three points, but PETER and IAN had a very long gruelling doubles game. They started badly scoring only three hoops with their four full bisques (extra turns) and one of the Bristol team built up a good lead. The Nailsea pair fought back and IAN caught up with the leading player, but PETER was having a terrible game blobbing every hoop and the Bristol pair gradually rebuilt their lead. PETER never gave up and slowly clawed his way back into the game, but as he was on the point of drawing level he clanged the penultimate hoop, leaving his ball on the wire. In his next turn PETER tapped his ball into the jaws of penult. One of the opponents scored one more point and tried to remove PETER's ball, but missed. PETER ran penult firmly and finished in front of rover (the final hoop). He ran rover cleanly and joined up with his partner ball. IAN scored rover, left the opponents widely separated and, after four and a half hours play, pegged out both himself and PETER from about twelve yards. This was a remarkable recovery by the Nailsea pair at the end of a very poor game and at the end of the game both players were feeling totally drained. The score was now two-all, so after half an hours break the pegged down game was resumed. PETER and JOHN did not take long to wrap up the game winning convincingly.

Results

IAN WILSON and PAT LONG lost -15   JOHN WALLACE won +25

PAT LONG lost -3     PETER DYKE & IAN WILSON won +3

PETER DYKE and JOHN WALLACE won +16

Federation League (at Bath)

Nailsea 4 Bath 3

Nailsea Croquet Club had another narrow win on Sunday, when their Federation League team travelled to Bath. Both team captains agreed to 3 ¼ hour time limits. In the morning J. DIXON had a good win but GEOFF HUGHES lost. The doubles was a very low scoring game, with the two teams having scored only five between them in the first two hours, with Bath leading. Bath continued to keep a couple of points ahead until, with half an hour left, PETER DYKE used Nailsea's bisque to make a five-hoop break. The Nailsea pair kept the lead and won by three points on time.

In the afternoon GRETA STRINGER had a good win, but J. DIXON and GEOFF both lost. Once again it was down to the last game to finish. The Bath player started badly, scoring only five points with three of his four bisques and PETER DYKE soon took the lead which he kept for most of the game, but with half an hour left his opponent played an excellent three-ball break to level the scores. With two turns each left PETER scored a three hoop break and won the deciding game by two points on time.

Results

PETER DYKE & GRETA STRINGER won  +3T

J. DIXON won +9 & lost -16   GEOFF HUGHES lost -12 & -16

PETER DYKE won +2T    GRETA STRINGER won +14