There were mixed fortunes for Chester croquet club teams in the North West Federation matches played this week.
On Thursday, the association team of John Dawson (captain), Sally Slater, David Boyd and Derek Bell-Jones travelled up to the beautiful Levens Hall in Cumbria to play Westmorland in the midweek handicap league. There were some closely fought games, but Chester lost 5-2.
Also on Thursday the Chester Centurions level play team played Bury Sovereigns at home. The weather was fine, but the lawns played quite slowly after rain. The visitors fought hard but were overwhelmed by the strong team of Garry Greenwood, Trevor Farrell and David Crawford (captain) and Chester won 16-2. Garry Greenwood won all of his 6 games.
The advanced B team played away at Crake Valley on Friday and it was declared a draw 2-2 after a Crake Valley player became unwell in the afternoon and couldn’t finish his game. Jerry Guest, Robin Tasker and John Dawson (captain) represented Chester.
The golf handicap match was played away against Bury North. There were challenging conditions at first with lots of puddles after much rain. Pat Clare, Maureen Ivens, Liz Subramanian and Jill Foley had some very close games with 6 of them going to the golden hoop, but after a very close match Bury North won 11-7.
Chester Croquet Club played their sixth match in the 2019 weekend handicap AC league away at Bowdon Firs on Sunday 11th Aug. T he team of David Boyd (Captain), Robin Tasker, Paul Watson and Brian Walton made a slow start in the morning session allowing Bowdon to take a lead of two games to one, however, the first two results in from the afternoon singles were wins for Chester so the overall outcome of the match now hung in the balance. The last two games were closely fought and went to time with one win to each club giving a final match result of a 4 games to 3 win for Chester confirming the team as the current NWFCC league leaders.