Scottish Croquet Association

Chairman's Rosebowl 2023

16-18 September, Meadows

The beautiful late summer weather broke just in time for the Chairman's & Malmet weekend, which was forecast to be cold and wet.  Happily, most of the heavy rain fell in the night and the lawns coped well, with only a small area of one lawn adversely affected.  With a tight handicap range of -1 to 1, all the contestants were potential winners.

Saturday highlights included a really nice straight triple peel by George against Alastair, including a superb bombard of peelee from behind 4-back across to penult which left it one foot in front of the hoop, almost too perfect as he then had to avoid rushing it out of peeling position when roqueting it.  The penult peel ran well to near rover but left a tricky hampered shot on the reception ball. The Irish rover peel and pegout went smoothly. Derek and David had a close +1 finish with David coming through just ahead.  John then beat David in another +1 with a dramatic ending - see John’s description below.  Chris pegged out all four of his games to finish the day unbeaten.

Sunday was a day of close games for all the contestants.  Chris’s unbeaten record was stopped by Alastair, who was then beaten by John.  Alastair finished the day with his third TP of the tournament putting him on 6/8 games, Chris and John were both on 5/7, with evenly poised pegged down games, so it was all to play for on the final day.

Monday started with finishing off the pegged down games: George beat John and David beat Chris.  John v Chris was likely to be crucial assuming Alastair lost at least one of his last two games, see John’s commentary on this close game below.  John won it and then beat Derek, giving him 7/10 wins.  David looked strong against Alastair. He had a ball at 4-back and his second break under control when a gently hit ball rolled off and missed the short roquet, ultimately costing him the game.  Alastair then had to beat Chris to avoid the 8 point tie breaker against John, which he duly did.

Thanks to those (especially David, but also Derek and John) who travelled to be there, looked after the lawns (George), moved the hoops (Roger), set the hoops (Roger and Chris), and refereed (Alan, David, John and Roger).

It seems it pays to manage this tournament.  It’s the third year running that the manager has won the trophy!  

Alastair Burn-Murdoch (Manager)

John's first game against David had a dramatic conclusion. David was three points ahead when time was called at the start of John's turn. John needed to hit in, run both penult and rover with brown, and peg out to make the scores level. He not only did all of that but also managed a spectacular peel of green through 4-back to win 23-22.

Their second game was notorious for the wrong reasons, as after two hours' play neither player had made a break of more than one hoop, and the final blob count was 9-4 to John.

In Monday's crucial match between Chris and John, the only two players who could possibly prevent Alastair from winning the title, Chris had a lead, but as time was running out left John a juicy double target instead of playing safe. John hit and went on to win 23-21 to put Chris out of the running.

John Owen

Results

(also on Croquet Scores)