Category: News

Many of you will have known Margaret Howard from when she joined the club with her husband Clive. Due to poor health she didn’t play croquet last year, but still came round to the lawns to say hello and have a chat.

Her husband Clive died a few weeks ago and, very sadly, Margaret died on Wednesday, 7 February, the day before Clive’s funeral.

Arrangements for her funeral are as follows:

Thursday. 1 March 2018
1.00 pm   St Andrew’s United Reformed Church at Handbridge
66 Handbridge, CH4 7JF
2.00 pm   Crematorium
3.00 pm   Chester Golf Club at Curzon Park

Everyone is welcome at St Andrew’s Church but the service at the crematorium  is for family and very close friends only.

Please note that there is hardly any parking at Handbridge.  Best bet may be to park at the Little Roodee and walk over the bridge.  Alternatively the number 16 bus from the bus station or outside Boots stops at St Andrew’s.

A sure sign that the new season is not far away …

Photographs taken by our ever hopeful Equipment Officer, Robin Tasker, on Monday, 12 February 2018

We are very sad to report the death of another member, Clive Howard, who died  at The Countess of Chester Hospital on Sunday, 21 January. He had been ill for some time. He and his wife, Margaret, joined the club in 2004 and used to enjoy the weekly club games. Both were well liked by all club members and we were all grateful for his willingness to use his membership of the Chester Golf Club to organise our annual dinners there.

Chester Croquet Club marked the end of another busy and successful season with a supper and trophy presentation at Chez Jules on Monday evening, 20 November. Awards were presented by chair, Sarah Andrew, at the end of the evening.

Trophy winners awarded during the evening were Mark Lloyd (Fletton trophy advanced AC); David Boyd (Mason Cup handicap AC); Sally Slater (Hasting Wang bowl AC short lawn); Mike Falla (Rabbits trophy AC); Chris and Sally Slater (Hermitage golf doubles trophy); Liz Subramanian (Mollie McBride RAT trophy GC); Pat Kelsall (Peter Bingham award GC); Val Sanders (most improved player AC) and Jill Foley (most improved player GC).

Winners of competitions played during the season who received their trophies at the time were Sandy Finchett-Maddock (Christine Long trophy GC); Paul Taylor (Hasting Wang GC singles) and Doreen Leece (Hibiscus trophy AC short lawn).

The club had some good results in NW Federation leagues, winning the midweek handicap AC league and coming second in the golf handicap league and the level play golf croquet league.

Individual succesesses during the season were:

• Sally Slater  winner of the NW Federation Millennium short croquet tournament at Chester on 14 May
• David Boyd  winner and Trevor Farrell  third in the Northern Area B Level golf croquet tournament at Bury on 9 July
• Garry Greenwood  winner and David Boyd (wearing his Tattenhall colours)  runner-up in the National Level Play Golf Croquet Tournament at Chester on 6 August, and Jayne Taylor winner of the Telfords Plate
• John Dawson  runner-up in the Advanced B Level tournament at Bowdon on 18 September
• David Boyd runner-up in the final of the All England B Level golf croquet tournament at Southport on 7-8 October

Sarah Andrew and John Dawson attended the NW Fed meeting on 18^th November.
There was lots of information sharing about current activities in the NW Fed and the CA but the key local outcomes were:
1) Organisation; Paul Rigge and Liz Wilson are the new Chairman and Treasurer
2) Leagues generally went well in 2017; most cancellations / rearrangements related to the weather. Format the same for 2018; 3 procedural improvements, namely
2a) team captains/ managers need to be familiar with the league rules especially on postponements. A summary will be produced
2b) Ivan (league manager) will try to schedule most / all league fixtures before end of August thus facilitating rearrangements in the event of bad weather
2c) Ivan needs the full individual score sheets in all level play matches as the data goes into national rankings
3) For all leagues home teams will no longer provide food as the norm (ie BYO) but teams will sit and eat together. Any club wishing to continue to provide food can do so if they wish
4) There was no support for universal wearing of team colours – this remains an individual team choice under the existing CA Tournament regulations
5) Chester will host the Millennium short lawn event on Sat 12^th May. National croquet day is Sun 13 ^th May
6) Chester collected the mid week AC trophy

The talk at most croquet clubs is of angled hoop running and triple peels but at Chester in the autumn a croquet player’s fancy lightly turns turns to thoughts of loaves. After a couple of quick games of golf croquet to work up an appetite it’s straight into the clubhouse where the merits of rye and sunflower seeds or sour dough toast are hotly contested. Aided by a major investment in a toaster and sunny weather the croquet season has been extended to the end of November. This simple incentive has kept the members playing for longer than usual. ” I don’t know which I enjoy most” said one player ” running a hoop from twenty yards or Frank’s home-made marmalade on hot sour dough toast”

Sixteen qualifiers from 24 local tournaments, countrywide, met at Southport Croquet Club on 7^th and 8^th October to compete in this year’s All England ‘B’ level, Golf Croquet final, including David Boyd, from Chester,  who qualified with his win at Bury in July.

Scoring was based on the number of wins in an all plays all competition, with everyone playing 8 games on Saturday and 7 on Sunday. The start of play was very soon followed by the start of the rain, which lasted on and off all Saturday resulting in 3 of the 4 primary lawns becoming un-playable. Fortunately Southport has the luxury of having additional, secondary lawns, where play continued.

David Boyd finished on Saturday with 5 wins out of 8, trailing the pack leaders by one. Thankfully no waterproofs were required for Sunday and as the day progressed speculation about the eventual winner grew and it wasn’t until late afternoon that David emerged as a ‘contender’. Having lost just one game on Sunday he finished with an overall total of 11 wins equal with the other top scorer, Paul Durkin of Long Eaton, Nottingham. However, Paul took the trophy beating David, into second place, on hoop difference.

 

Chester MP, Chris Matheson, accompanied by local councillor, Richard Beacham, made a visit to Chester Croquet Club on Wednesday, 4 October, during one of their club days and tried his hand at croquet. The main purpose of the visit was to introduce him to the game and a flourishing club based in a public park in his constituency and to up-date him on some of the current issues of concern to the club but it had the additional benefit of briefing him about the Croquet Association’s national role in the context of his membership of the House of Commons Select Committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. On a sunny but blustery autumnal day he was impressed by the numbers and obvious enjoyment of the members playing and gained an understanding of the strong league structure for all levels of play across the North West. He quickly grasped the competitive dimensions of the sport as well as its social, outdoor exercise and health benefits for players. Local issues are to be followed up with council representatives and Mr Matheson offered to meet with national officials of the Croquet Association at the Houses of Parliament to discuss the future needs of croquet across the country.

Chester Croquet Club’s annual Mason Cup association croquet handicap competition is played during the season, where the top scorers from the group stage qualify for the semi-final and final. This year the final, between Brian Walton (hcp 16) and David Boyd (hcp 6), was played on Saturday, 30th September. Brian Walton immediately took the initiative and, making effective use of his 10 bisques (extra shots) , built a commanding lead by reaching peg and four back. Meanwhile David Boyd had managed to score just two hoops, 19 points behind, with a mountain to climb to get back into the game. Eventually he managed to get a break together taking 10 hoops and was then able to peg out Brian’s forward ball. Having 2 remaining bisques Brian ran 2 more hoops before David steadily worked his way round with his second ball, finally pegging out to win by two points. An epic game and a narrow finish!