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HWCC reached the quarter finals of the national GC Interclub Tier 3 Bowl competition and so travelled to Ashby on 13 July. The competition requires a total team handicap of 20 or more, so Ashby started from a stronger theoretical position with 20 to our 25. Some home advantage also applied with the club's lawns playing -- let us say idiosyncratically! But Andrew Maclay and Keith Toovey halved the opening doubles match; Nigel Moore played a skipper's innings to win both of his singles; and James Gamon took both of his opponents to only one or two net points in his opening games. Ashby therefore came out worthy winners by 4.5 to 2.5 and go forward to the semi-finals. The neatest summary of the enjoyable nature of the day (and the character of the High Wycombe team) came in an email from the Ashby captain: "You were the nicest bunch of visitors we've had for some time!" Chris Webbley
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 Fortunately, this mallet belonged to an Ashby player engaged perhaps too energetically in their GC InterClub Tier 3 Bowl match with HWCC. 4 of our Junior GC members went to Nottingham on the 21st and 22nd June to take part in the Schools and Clubs Junior Championships.
We have continued the midweek summer evening Roll Ups and even had a BBQ last week. We had full lawns playing both AC and GC, played well on into the evening with a setting sun and long shadows across the lawn. We cooked our respective BBQ meats and Halloumi cheese before sitting (also with chilled beer or wine) to watch others play out their respective matches. Nothing too competitive, just a relaxed evening’s croquet and then home to watch a more energetic England beat Croatia in The World Cup. What’s not to like….
Short Croquet is a version of Association Croquet designed to be a bit quicker than the full game: half-size lawns, and a race to 14 rather than 26 points. A handicap system gives bisques to the weaker players, and gives stronger players an additional hurdle in the form of mandatory peels to be completed. Games typically have time limits of 75 or 90 minutes.
It’s not a form of the game that had been played much at Wycombe, but after trying it out at some of our winter tournaments, we decided to enter both the SCF league and the national Inter-Club knockout. It was for the latter competition that a team of Mike Porter, David Cotton, Richard Coward and Mike West travelled to Blewbury on 18th June. Play started at 10.30, and astonishingly by 10.50 Wycombe had got their first point on the board, with David racing to a 14-0 win over Joe King. Unfortunately, in the doubles game, Mike P and Richard couldn’t stop Brian and Carol Jamieson with their six bisques and lost 6-14, and Mike W battled hard before losing to Steve Fisher 11-14. 2-1 to Blewbury at lunch. In the afternoon, David continued his strong play with a 14-9 win over Brian, and Mike W beat Carol in a nailbiter, 14-12. Mike P could only admire as his opponent Joe successfully completed his mandatory 5 peels in a 14-5 win, and Richard didn’t get off the mark, losing 0-14 to Steve. 4-3 to Blewbury with one round to go. Wycombe needed to win three of the remaining four games to win the tie, and proceeded to do just that – Mike W only needed two of his six bisques to beat Joe 14-2, Mike P found some form to beat Carol 14-5 and David was victorious over Steve, 14-8. Richard’s defeat to Brian made the final result a 6-5 win to Wycombe. We’re now in the quarter-finals, where we will face Caversham or Bradford-on-Avon. The Inter-Counties Championship is a national team AC advanced doubles competition sponsored by Croquet England. 22 counties participate, in two Divisions. Matches are played concurrently over four days in Southwick and Compton. The team at the bottom of Division 2 may face a playoff against a county that wants to participate. Buckinghamshire started this year's competition towards the bottom of Division 2 and so it was imperative that we win sufficient matches to keep ourselves from relegation. The top three teams in Division 2 are promoted to Division 1 for the next year and the bottom three teams in Division 1 are relegated to Division 2. The Buckinghamshire squad comprised Gabriel Furse (captain), David Boyd, David Cotton, Richard Coward, Paul Franklin, Geoff Johnson, Richard Pepperell, Mike Porter, Mike West and Mark Wilce. You'll note that apart from David Boyd (Guildford) all the players are from High Wycombe. Gabriel was a splendid captain: he studied the form of the opposing teams, selected doubles partners carefully to match them, kept an eagle eye on all the matches whilst playing beautifully himself and was hugely motivating. And Richard P did a splendid job not only of getting the squad together but providing accommodation for us during the competition. Thank you to both. Huge congratulations must go to Mike West, Richard Coward, Paul Franklin and Mark Wilce who all won games while, according to their handicaps, were seen as the underdogs. (Perhaps Wycombe is full of bandits!) Gabriel commented that he particularly enjoyed the opponents' expressions when he told them Mark was a 16 handicap, immediately after he hit in across the length of the lawn. In game 1, Paul and Mark and got slightly ahead at the start but frustrated themselves with some hoop blobbing - then we set up and made a four ball break which got us with a strong enough lead to secure the important win. In game 2 they knew they would be likely to have more to do against a stronger pair - so right at the start they set up a long hit in for Mark which he made, which they think helped the opposition take them very seriously. Sadly we did not deliver but the psychological tactic had good effect What surprised some of us was high quality of the opposition! Given we were playing in division two, we did not expect to end up facing at least one minus player in every game, and quite often two! So on average we were out-handicapped in most matches. Another highlight was a brilliant three-ball ending from David Boyd who won against very good opposition after Gabriel was pegged out,, demonstrating how transferable GC skills can be in an AC match. Richard Peperell had several very good turns. A standout one was a very controlled break in his game with Gabriel against Phil Eardly (-2) and his partner, which Bucks won convincingly. It's no surprise that Richard's handicap has subsequently come down to 1.5. He also did very well in a crucial (potential relegation) game on the final day against Norfolk, alongside David Cotton, coming down to a golden hoop after time. David Cotton reputedly played a fairly heroic two-ball break for three hoops (although the folklore suggests that it may have been four) in the game against Norfolk to take it to a win on time. Gabriel enjoyed playing alternate strokes with Geoff and Mike P, commenting that Geoff played better shots than him in their first game. He found his form playing with with Mike and they had some fun with a rather optimistic straight triple attempt... at least for 3 shots or so until they placed an opponent ball bang in front of Penult. The attempt to move it by bombarding it from the corner didn't miss by much and it wasn't to be. Luckily they still won the game. Richard and David preferred to play own ball and were able to beat Norfolk and Devon. The highlight for Gabriel was against Glamorgan where he finished his break by running 3 back from at least 45 degrees and managed to cobble a proper leave together, leading them to winning the game (and match) against a -2 and a -1. Afterwards multiple people told him that they thought at the time that he was attempting an impossible hoop Ultimately, we finished mid-table in Division 2, and so avoided relegation. As a footnote, The Division 2 winners played in green check trousers, bought from a catering company. Clearly we will need a team uniform next year - crucial to our new goal of getting promoted to Division 1. Here at the complete scores: https://croquetscores.com/2026/ac/inter-county-championship This is a testing, but thoroughly enjoyable tournament; quite unlike any other AC event. So think about playing with us next year... David Cotton (and team) Photo: Mark Wilce, David Boyd, Richard Pepperell, Gabriel Furse, David Cotton and Paul Franklin.  Don't you enjoy Croquet when a day goes down to the final game of the eight?! The HWCC Doubles team of David Cotton (capt) & Rachael Bone, and Richard Coward & Catherine Shore met Thames Valley on 9th June. Total handicaps were 24-24.
On a blustery day, at lunch honours were even and this continued after Round 3. But the Thames Valley lead pair who had won all their games were brought low in Round 4 and with a win for our other pair, HW came out on top by 5 games to 3. This was the second win in our first two Doubles League matches Congratulations to our players and thanks to Ian Shore for refereeing. Chris Webbley Eight players arrived at High Wycombe on Saturday sixth June to compete for the annual GC Summer Tournament. Several different clubs were represented because the event had been advertised on the national tournament entry system. Tournament manager Chris Webbley had taken the risk of going ahead with the event despite the forecast for light rain throughout. On occasion the light rain. turned heavy but people were determined to make a day of it and the event completed successfully. Kevin Ward took home the trophy with five wins out of five, the final being an appropriately close 7-6 finish. Thanks go to Richard Holroyd for assisting Chris Webbley as Tournament Manager and to all the players for their good humour on a typical English summer's day. PS the blue sky was a fake... Chris Webbley Because the SCF Advantage GC leagues have been changed for 2026, it was to a new venue that the HW Kites travelled yesterday to play Hartley Wintney. Our team was made very welcome and demonstrated admirable flexibility in adjusting to lawns that played differently -- slower and less flat -- than those we are used to at High Wycombe.
Despite this, the team of Richard Coward, Andrew Maclay, Barry Stanton and Mike West brought home a strong victory by 10 to 6. This makes the second successive win for the Kites, a good start to the season. Chris Webbley |
