A challenge, a team and a mascot!

Having been invited, we sent a team of 5 to the South Eastern Croquet Federation “Southern Challenge” held annually at Sussex County Croquet Club, Southwick (near Brighton). This is a one-off event for clubs 'in the south’, run on the lines of the Inter-Counties Championship. Teams could include invited guests so we took the opportunity to include Bridget Goodman from Ealing Croquet Club (she provided the team mascot, her dog Crunchie!).

In short, we won a very creditable 4th place. After playing all the other clubs in a mix of doubles and singles, 13-point, games, we gained a place in the top 4 play-offs. These involved 19 pt games which generated an interesting element to the game. While we are unable to better our 4th position during that second round we played against some strong players and, as in the first round, had most enjoyable matches with some very tight results.

Thank you one and all for a most enjoyable weekend of croquet.

Ian Shore

(And thank you, Ian, for undertaking the tasks of team captain.  Chris W)