In today's SCF AGC match, HW Kites went down heavily to Harwell A.  By lunchtime, only captain Chris had put a game on the HW side of the balance sheet and the afternoon went much the same way, to a final score of 13-3 to our visitors.  Good sportsmanship, rainy weather, excellent cake, and the HW team kept smiling.  

Phyllls Court suffered a narrow loss at High Wycombe in the Southern Federation GC 'B' League after a compelling deciding game from Kay Vickery. With all other matches completed Kay still had a decider to play in front of what was a huge crowd (for croquet) of the six other players. Initially going behind, Kay gave everyone some tense moments, tea was spilt, cake ignored - but Kay was made of steel today and she rallied, commanded the court and brought home victory on the Golden Hoop.
 
It was a close run thing all day with all but two of the matches going to a third game and five games going to the Golden Hoop. Congrats to Michael and Nigel M for their wins and no thanks to me for losing both of mine -- but, it did make that final game compelling! 

Here are the team (Nigel Moore, Kay, Michael Bowker and Mark Higgins) and Raghu Iyer representing Phyllis Court.

Mark Higgins 

The pathway to the club needed renewing.  But work costs money.  Always?  No, not when public-spirited Nigel Clogg is around.  With him, you get a good job done, for no charge.  Thank you, Nigel!

Chris Webbley, with photo from Barry Stanton
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On Mon, 1 Jul, HWCC sent a team of 4 to Harwell to represent the club in the SCF Doubles League (each pairing plays both of the opponent’s pairs twice).

That sentence was almost not possible due to the late notification of the illness of one of the intended team.  Thankfully Jane Gloster answered a desperate call - as the team was travelling to Harwell - and, changing her plans, making up the fourth member of the team.  The others were Keith Muras, Catherine Shore and Ian Shore.

Harwell offers 2 lawns on the outskirts of a cricket field.  The lawns had been mown closely that morning, so they were playing fast.  In addition, they had the undulations you could expect from such location, plus an unreliable surface particularly near some very loose hoops.

These conditions proved challenging for Jane and Ian, who dropped their first match, on the 13th.  Fortunately, Catherine and Keith adapted more quickly, winning both their morning matches.  Ian and Jane managed to recover, so that by lunch HWCC, was ahead by two games.    As the afternoon saw the both sides share the honours, the end result was 5:3 to HWCC.

Well done HWCC Doubles team and a special thank you to Jane for stepping into the breach! (Another Shakespeare reference!  Editor)

Ian Shore

The High Wycombe GC Inter-Club team of Ron Carter, Keith Toovey, Mark Higgins and Chris Webbley drove a long way north to play Bowdon in the next round of this national competition on Tuesday 2 July.  We were expecting a very challenging day: HWCC to Bowdon is some 180 miles, so our departure time was 06:30, and we knew that Bowdon were putting out a very strong team.  So it proved, with Bowdon's handicaps 0f -3, -3, -1 and -1 against our +1 , +2, +3 and +5!  Jack Good, anybody?

But you can have a good day even when the result was not going to be in much doubt.  Bowdon were hospitable and friendly, their lawns played sweetly, the weather stayed dry and even turned sunny, and individual HWCC players had the satisfaction of taking the odd game off players way lower in handicap.   So, Bowdon go through to the next round after a 7-0 win but HWCC returned home from a companionable day of good croquet.  

​Chris Webbley

What a perfect way to spend the early evening of the longest day watching a little croquet, eating good food and chatting with friends!

Thanks to Kenny Weir for organising such a lovely evening and preparing and cooking  such delicious food, Also, thanks to his two super assistants - Richard Coward on the refreshment stall and Matthew Miles-Griffiths acting as sous-chef and general helper.  Carole Lawther provided the most scummy chocolate brownies and raspberry and almond tart to top the evening. 
It was lovely to see some fellow players, like Julian Webster and Annette Harley, who haven't been able to play recently.  And finally, it is a great credit to the Club that everyone who attended did something to make the event so special.  

​Sharon Clark

Over the weekend 22/23 Jun, Keith Toovey, Rich Waterman, Bridget Goodman (on loan from Ealing CC) and Ian Shore (Captain) travelled to the sunny South Coast to represent High Wycombe Croquet Club in the Southern Challenge Tournament held annually at Susses County Croquet Club at Southwick, near Brighton.

... and what a weekend of splendid croquet it was!  

We played against 5 other clubs: Cheam, East Dorset, Guildford, Ryde and Sussex, with each club being played twice, making 10 games.  Clubs were then to be ranked, with the top two clubs, the next two and the final two, required to play the best of three, to produce the final order.  

The format required us to field a double pair and two singles for each match (13 point level GC), with all players being required to play an equal number of doubles and singles.  

Rich partnered Keith, while Ian paid up with Bridget, which proved to be a even mix.

After the end of the first day, we had 4 wins and 3 loses, putting us in the middle order.  On Day 2, the Ian and Bridget pair and Keith solo held the day against East Dorset. Although the next match v Cheam produced a disappointing overall result (despite a comprehensive win by the Rich and Keith duo), the final match against Ryde produced a 3-nil victory, with all players playing strongly.

The result was to place High Wycombe in the Final against the formidable Sussex County Club, who were able to draw on 6 strong players for their team.  Nonetheless our team performed above standard, to allow the final result all to rest on the third game between our captain and their best player.  Early hoops went Sussex’s way and it was 4-2 to them after the first 6 hoops.  An impressive long jump at Hoop 8 and an important boundary hoop run at Hoop 9 started to turn the tide, which eventually meant that all depended on the replaying Hoop 3 as the deciding hoop.  With most other players watching on, an ambitious, steeply angled, close to the wire, jump stroke by High Wycombe agonisingly just grazed the near post and shied away, allowing the honours to fall to Sussex with a straight forward final hoop.

Playing a total of 13 very demanding games to a high standard, over two days, on excellent lawns, with fellow team members, against competitive clubs proved to be a first-class weekend of croquet.  We came away proud that High Wycombe were the Runners Up. 

If you would like to join us for next year (there is no bar on the number we can take), please let me know.

​Ian Shore