Short and Sweet: Wycombe advance to quarter-finals

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.