Chester Croquet Club played host to 51 young guides and rangers from the 1st Huntingdon troup on a sunny Tuesday evening, 10 September. The youngsters came for a fun game of croquet and after a brief introduction to the sport, enthusiastically joined in organised games with their friends. Many members of the club helped the girls play croquet during the session and afterwards with drinks and snacks. The evening was enjoyed by all.
On Saturday, 14 September, the Bowdon Blanks short lawn team visited Chester for their North West Federation league match. Bowdon fielded a very strong team of low handicap players, but the Chester team of Derek Bell-Jones, Jayne Taylor, Sally Slater and Andy Wilson-Chalon fought hard to give the visitors a good match. At lunch Bowdon were leading 5-3, but ran away with the match in the afternoon and the final score was 11-5. The weather was glorious and the match was played in very good humour.
A few days later on Tuesday, 17 September, a Chester team of Sally Slater (captain), Sarah Clements, Jayne Taylor and Helen Brophy travelled to Bowdon to play their other short lawn team, the Bowdon Bullets.
This turned out to be an equally challenging match, though at lunch all was square with 4 games each. In the afternoon the Bullets played very well and despite some very close games, including two going to a golden hoop, the final result was another win for Bowdon 11-5.
In another short lawn match on Wednesday, 18 September, Chester played away against Llanfairfechan, this being our first match in the Snowdonia Cup this year.
On a wonderful sunny day by the sea Chester’s team of Nigel Worthington, Andy Wilson-Chalon and Liz Rowley triumphed 6-3. We are now looking forward to our next match against Craig-y -Don on Saturday, 28 September.
The next day, Thursday, 19 September, saw the last match of the season for Chester Centurions in the North West Federation level play golf croquet league and the long awaited arrival of summer – sunshine all day in the beautiful Crake Valley. It was a key game for both sides, where a win for either would secure second place in the league, but a loss would mean fourth place.
The Chester team of Mark Lloyd, John Hampson and David Boyd set off strongly winning their first round of three games and managed to maintain that lead throughout the day, despite some strong push backs from David Cornes, Neil Adams and Steve Skelton of Crake Valley throughout the day.
All the games were close and so we didn’t finish playing until after 5:30 pm, but the final result was Chester Centurions 11, Crake Valley 7. And then we stayed another half an hour as Crake treated us to a celebratory beer (non-alcoholic, of course), before a long drive home.
Thanks to Crake for a very pleasant and hospitable end to the league season.
This win for Chester results in the club achieving second place behind Bowdon Bombers in this year’s North West Federation level play golf croquet league.
In a separate match not involving Chester, Bowdon lost 1 – 4 to Bury in the North West Federation Advanced B Level association croquet league. This outcome means that Chester has emerged as overall winner in this league ahead of Crake Valley in second place and Bowdon Angels in third place.
Chester can therefore celebrate one victory and one second place in this year’s league matches. Hurrah!