Murphy Shield win for Chester

Summer eventually arrived at Chester this week (and is forecast to last until Saturday when the rain returns). So on Thursday, 18 July, we were able to welcome Croquet Durham in the quarter final of the national Murphy Shield level play golf croquet competition with a gloriously sunny morning, a warm but overcast afternoon, and a small tornado that crossed the lawns making everyone hold onto their hats for a minute!

The morning saw the first two singles matches shared: Chester 1 Durham 1, but the doubles match had only got to one game all by lunchtime; and the captains were getting hungry, so decided to have lunch then play the remaining singles matches, hoping for a decisive win one way or the other without having to finish the deciding game of doubles. However, the players on both sides ‘conspired’ against this plan and shared the four singles matches two games all. So at Chester 3, Durham 3, the final doubles game became the decider. It was a tense final game with a large crowd (more than ten!) and quite a few missed shots in the early part of the game, but both teams settled down and in the end Chester just edged the final game by 7 hoops to 5 to win the match.

Many thanks to Durham for an enjoyable match which, despite the closeness of the games and the resulting tension in the match, was played through the whole (long) day in an open and friendly spirit. We hope to draw against Durham in next year’s competition and visit their lawns at Chester-le-Street.

And a special thanks to Tom and Sandy Grievson for providing a fabulous lunch which kept us all (and most of the crowd) fuelled up throughout the day.

Chester now go on to play in the semi-finals of the Murphy Shield against Watford.