Short day? Play short croquet!

The latest instalment in the AC winter tournament series was a short croquet day held on 17th January. One advantage of short croquet is that it allows more players to play on a given day, and this time we had ten - mostly High Wycombe members, but also visitors from St Albans and Bath.

The day got off to an inauspicious start, with rain bucketing down while we set up the lawns, and conditions were a bit squelchy all day.  Mike West had just decided that he wasn’t going to risk playing in such conditions while he was recovering from a cold, when the rain eased off and he relented. 

Short croquet games are just that – short – and while we had set a 75-minute time limit, only two of the 29 games played were decided on time. Everyone played at least five games, and two of us managed to fit in seven. The early front-runners were Mike West and Richard Peperell who each won their first two games, but Mike defeated Richard 14-0 in the third game to take a commanding lead in the tournament.

Also in contention was Gabriel Furse, who won two of his first three games despite a recent handicap reduction which meant that he had to complete one mandatory peel in each game. However, he took himself out of contention during his fourth game… leading comfortably against Mike Porter, he was just about to peg out when he inexplicably missed a roquet of a few inches. Mike pounced on the opportunity and came back to win 14-12.

Ultimately, it was Mike West who saw off all his challengers to win the day with a 5/5 record. An excellent runner-up spot was claimed by Heather Bennett (St Albans) who also won 5 games but lost 2.  

We are very lucky as a club to be able to host these events throughout the winter.  Despite the early rain, the lawns drained well and provided a high quality playing surface throughout.  Other than a few complaints of wet feet, all agreed the day was a great success!

​Mike Porter