Southern Croquet Federation AC B-level league result: "All good things must come to an end..."

For the last four years, High Wycombe has won the SCF Association Croquet B-level league. Going into the first weekend of September, we had won all three of our league matches and things were looking good for a fifth consecutive title, but sadly it was not to be.

September 4th saw the conclusion of the Oxford University-High Wycombe match: this match had originally been scheduled for July, but a late withdrawal meant that only two of the games had been completed, and the tie was poised at 1-1. Keith Pound travelled to Oxford for his game against Ian Plummer, but fell to a 26-7 defeat, meaning that we had lost the match 2-1.

This meant that the title was no longer in our hands – a victory at Hamptworth on Sunday would give us a chance to retain the trophy, but we would be relying on other results to go our way.

After the long drive down to Wiltshire, Mike Porter found himself up against an in-form Tim O’Donnell and quickly lost his match.  While Richard Peperell scored a notable victory against Richard Dickson, Alan Clark was edged out by Chris Weedon and the team suffered another 2-1 defeat.  

​Many congratulations to Hamptworth, who are worthy league champions this year – we’ll be back to try to regain the crown in 2022!

Mike Porter