Scottish Croquet Association

Summer Weekend 2016

2-3 July, Balgreen

Alan Wilson won the Summer Weekend AC Handicap tournament.   Seventeen players met at Scotland’s newest croquet club, Balgreen, to compete for the Summer Weekend Quaich.   Balgreen has two lawns but were able to hire the other two bowling greens to create a four lawn venue.  The courts were fairly slow (the bowling greens were timed at just under 7 seconds on Sunday evening) but flat with no noticeable hills with the balls bobbling a bit on the two croquet courts.   The weather was changeable on Saturday varying from warm sunshine to pouring rain but improved on Sunday although there was a gusting wind for much of both days.

Manager Alan Wilson used the traditional Egyptian format with Charles Henderson having the late start. Handicaps ranged from John Surgenor’s -½ to Lyn Gilpin’s 18.  Time limits of 3 hours + 3 minutes per bisque were adopted with bisques only available to be used during the initial 3 hrs.  Matches could be played until 2000 on Saturday with a 1800 guillotine on Sunday and several competitors took advantage of the extra time.   49 matches were completed with the 50^th just falling foul of the guillotine when David Houston missed a short peg out with 10 seconds left before 18.00.  Only 5 games went to time, despite the conditions, suggesting that the time limits work well.

The first round saw Roger Binks v Bill Strachan, Hamish Duguid v Lyn Gilpin, Janice Duguid v Joe Lennon, Brian Durward v Alastair Burn-Murdoch, David Houston v Jola Jurasinska, Alistair Malcolm v Alan Wilson, Jane Morrison v Rosemary Saunders Robertson and John Surgenor v Jamieson Walker resulting in wins for Bill, Lyn, Joe, Alastair, David, Alan, Rosemary and Jamieson.

After the first day the leaders were Bill Strachan with 3/3, Roger Binks and Jamieson Walker with 3/4 with Hamish Duguid, Charles Henderson, Joe Lennon and Alan Wilson still in contention with 2/3.  Joe and Bill had pegged a game down with 1hr 20 min on the clock which made Sunday’s first round have the leaders playing one another: Roger v Charles and Hamish v Alan with Jamieson awaiting the loser of Joe or Bill while the winner played the first to finish from the other two games.

Joe beat Bill, Alan beat Hamish relatively quickly while Roger beat Charles after a fairly long game so Jamieson played Bill and Alan played Joe while Roger took on Alastair Burn-Murdoch (the best of the rest). Bill, Alan and Roger all won meaning Alan should play one of the other two as Bill had already played Roger. In the event Bill had to leave early, so Roger and Alan played in a winner-take-all final round.

Roger used half his bisques to get to 4b then let Alan in.  Alan went to penult and Roger started his second ball.  Failing to get on hoop 2 he left Alan a long shot which Alan hit.  He went round peeling penult and just failing to get peelee in front of rover for the rover peel.  He made rover and left balls near corners 1, 3 and 4 with Roger’s hoop 2 ball near the middle of the lawn. Roger used 2 bisques to get going and had to use the remainder fairly quickly to establish his break. Everything looked under control when disaster struck. Having accidentally run into a double banking ball and worked out where the balls were or would have finished, Alan looked up from recording results to see Roger run 4b when he was for 6. A fatal error which let Alan back in to finish and take the trophy.

Feats worth mentioning include Alan’s straight double peel against Hamish, Jamieson’s all round break with no bisques which he claims is his first ever and, the most impressive, Alistair’s first ever all round break without bisques followed by another one next turn. Also worth mentioning is a player running penult the wrong way and finishing the game with neither the player nor opponent realising. It pays to be the vigilant opponent.

Finally, if managing tournaments means winning them I might do it more often!

Alan Wilson

Handicap changes

Saturday:  Bill Strachan from 14 to 12
Sunday:  Roger Binks from 14 to 12