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Tournament Reports 2008
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Amos takes President's Cup by Storm
New for 2008 and played over the weekend of 9/10th August, this was the first CA tournament at Bath to be played under Advanced Rules. The handicap range for the tournament was 2 to 8 which is generally known as 'B Class'. Club President Bob Whitaker and his wife Audrey Whitaker very kindly donated a beautiful cup for the occasion and so the tournament was named the President's Cup.
Bath's Nigel Amos hot from winning the previous week's Longman Cup at Budleigh Salterton lost no time in also winning the first President's Cup. Throughout the weekend he played with confidence, maturity and skill. Amos defeated his closest rival Geoff Hughes of Nailsea and ended the tournment as the convincing winner with 6 wins out of 6.
Club Chairman Roger Hayes managed the event and did an excellent job of keeping all the players busy despite the appallingly wet August weather. In order that a 'proper' Swiss competition could be played all the games were reduced to 22 points thus ensuring everyone managed 3 full games on both days without the need for time limits. This generally worked well and very few games had to have time limits imposed by the manager.
(The photograph above shows Nigel Amos being presented with the President's Cup by CA Chairman Jonathan Issacs)
13th August 2008
Success at Budleigh Week for Bath Stars
Nigel Amos won the Longman Cup for B Level Advanced play and defeated fellow Bath club mate Ian Lewis in the final by 19 points. Both players had come through tough semi-final matches on the previous day against in form opponents. Lewis defeated Dulwich's John Reddish by 11 points whilst Amos just came through by 4 points against local Budleigh player Michael Lester.
Jim Field with a handicap of 2 scored a remarkable victory by 3 points over Bristol's Roger Jenkins (handicap -1) in the group stages of the A Class event. He continued his good form to defeat tournament manager Mike Town by 5 points in the quarter-final and Southport's Bob Burnett (also handicap -1) by 17 in the semi-final. Field finally met his match when Roger Jenkins got his revenge by winning the final and the prestigious Colman Cup in convincing fashion +26tp.
Peter Miles reached the final of the C Class event (for the Stone Challenge Cup) and only narrowly lost to Southport's Melanie Foster by 9 points after leading for much of the game. He had a highly successful week winning 3 out of 5 of his handicap games and at the same time securing his CA Silver Award for performing a 12 hoop break without bisques.
5th August 2008
Home Victory in 2008 Millennium Cup
Bath's own Richard Stopforth was a deserving winner of the 2008 Millennium Cup held over the last weekend of June. He convincingly defeated fellow Bath player David Perkins +17 in the final of the two day handicap event. In so doing Stopforth reduced his handicap to 10, won his CA Bronze Award and finished the tournament with 6 wins out of 6.
In an enjoyable and keenly fought tournament 16 players from clubs as far afield as Bowdon in Cheshire, Cornwall, Cardiff and Blewbury near Didcot took part. On the first day players were divided into sections and required to play 3 matches. Bristol's Deirdre Duggan played a remarkable shot in her first round victory over 15 year old Chris Balshaw of Blewbury. Her front ball had been pegged out and after running 4 back with her back ball she shot at the opponent balls but a bizarre mis-hit meant that her ball went sailing through penalt! She was then able to hit the opponent balls, make rover and peg out for a +8 victory.
At the end of the first day 3 players, Richard Williamson of Bristol, Richard Stopforth of Bath and Gordon Weir of Cheltenham had won all 3 of their blocks games. These players along with 5 others entered the quarter-finals on Sunday morning. One of the most entertaining moments of the whole tournament occurred when Tony Backhouse of Cornwall marched on to the lawn in his match against Richard Stopforth and rushed green with brown whilst exclaiming that his opponent could at least have left the rush in the right direction. It was only a few moments after playing the stroke that Tony realised that he was not actually playing green and brown and that his opponent had infact left the pink and white balls well split up. For the rest of the match onlookers were regularly heard to say “you're playing pink and white Tony” as he stepped out to play!
Bath's David Perkins had a very good tournament and in beating Bristol's in form Richard Williamson in the quarter-final he won his CA Bronze Award by scoring a 10 hoop break with bisques. Williamson himself finished the tournament with an excellent 5 wins out of 6 and a handicap reduction to 10. Francois Garcia of Bowdon, playing in her first CA tournament showed great potential in reaching the semi-final only to lose out to the consistancy of Richard Stopforth by 14 points. In the other semi-final Perkins defected Deirdre Duggan by 9. Over the whole tournament Stopforth played with great confidence and consistant break play and was a very deserving winner of the 2008 Millennium Cup.
Richard Stopforth was subsequently awarded with 2008's Most Improved Player Award at Bath Croquet Club's Annual Dinner held in October 2008. Other members including Nick King, Richard Jelly, Roger Hayes, Richard Mills and Jim Field were awarded with trophies for the club's 2008 internal competitions at the dinner held at Bath University.
3rd July 2008
Bradforth Wins Women's Championship
Bath's top ranked player Louise Bradforth repeated her 2007 triumph by winning the Women's Championship at Budleigh Salterton.
She defeated experienced Bristol player Frances Ransom in the semi-final by 2 straight games to nil. Bradforth was then made to fight all the way in the final against Cheltenham's Carol Smith but came through by 2 games to 1 winning +6, -26, +17.
Bradforth has now won the Women's Championship 3 years in a row and firmly cemented herself as the UK's number 1 female player.
9th June 2008
Cliff-hanger Win At Doubles Tournament
12 pairs of players contested Bath Croquet Club's recent Walter May national doubles weekend tournament. Players came from as far away as Cornwall and Kent, as well as players from Cheltenham, Poole, Kington Langley and Bath.
The standard of play was high, and the games were very close, but by the end of the first day Bath players Richard and Connie Stopforth were clear leaders with three wins from three games in their section. On the final day, the Stopforths playing with great skill and care increased their lead in the morning by winning their fourth game.
The final pitted the Stopforths against the winners of the other section, tournament manager Cliff Jones and his partner Julie Horsley. It was an exciting final with the Bath pair going ahead early on due to their higher handicaps and skilful use of their bisques (extra turns) against the more experienced Jones and Horsley. When time was called, the Stopforths were both for the final rover hoop with Jones and Horsley both two hoops behind.
In his final turn Jones managed to engineer a break from an almost impossible position, and peeled his partner's ball through a hoop whilst also running three hoops with his own ball in order to level the score. It was now required for one of the teams to score a 'golden hoop' to win the tournament. Connie Stopforth came onto the lawn and shot at the opponents balls, but narrowly missed. In a nail biting finish Horsley rushed Jones' ball to the hoop, took croquet and then scored the hoop with her continuation stroke to win the match and the tournament by just one point.
The final was a fitting tribute to a keenly fought tournament, enjoyed by all the players and for the first time for several years there was no rain.
(Report by Bob Whitaker and published in the Bath Chronicle)
22nd May 2008
Early Season Short Croquet at Nailsea
A Bath team of Roger Hayes (captain), Daniel Mills, David Perkins and Richard Stopforth competed in the South West Federation Short Croquet Team Event held at Nailsea on Sunday 13th April and won 9 matches out of a possible 16 to finish in a credible 3rd place in our first year taking part in the event.
15th April 2008
Willis Continues Success at Cheltenham
Andrew Willis started the new season as he finished 2007 - by winning a trophy and reducing his handicap. At the Cheltenham Easter tournament he won the consolation 'Egyptian' event by winning 10 matches out of 12 and his handicap came down to 2.5.
26th March 2008
Chairman's November 2007 AGM Report
Given that only some 8 months; nevertheless a whole playing season, have elapsed since I last gave you a Chairman’s Report, I have pondered long and hard over whether to dwell on the past, factual elements of the 2007 season or to spend more of my time in philosophising over where I would like us to be in the future, short, medium and long-term.
I suppose it is incumbent upon me to report on the highlights of the 2007 season, as I see them, and I have to say that there have indeed been some notable highlights. We do in fact have some individual champions among us, perhaps most notable being Louise Bradforth, not because she is yet again Women’s Champion (she will probably be one of the first to acknowledge that her fellow competitors were not anywhere close to her skill level) but because most impressively she was also the winner of the Treasurer’s Tankard against quite formidable opposition, to the point where, in a competition in which members of the Croquet Association were required to predict the most likely winners of the various Eights, nobody but nobody predicted Louise as winning the 4th Eight – she didn’t get a single vote! Congratulations, Louise, and well played.
Another champion among us is Andrew Willis, not at such a rarefied level as Louise, but given that he was only playing in his 3rd year since starting to play the game, succeeded in winning tournaments at Wrest Park in Bedford, our own Millennium Trophy at Bath and at the Budleigh Salterton week in August. With Mo Bell, he almost won the internal Handicap Doubles event here at Bath, but that’s another story ! Nigel Amos also came good in his class event at Budleigh, so between us all the future is starting to look brighter than it has done this season on the team front, where Bath did not produce the same good results as in previous years. Our Federation League team won its section, only to lose to Dyffryn in a semi-final play-off, our B League team won through to its final at Sidmouth, only to receive a beating at the hands of Nailsea, our Intermediate team had decidedly intermediate results and our Parkstone Trophy team managed yet again to be relegated to the lower division, although I can say, with some considerable satisfaction, that we did achieve one win and that was against the eventual winners of this year’s Parkstone Trophy (Bristol) - I am told much to the disgust in hindsight of Bristol’s captain David Goacher!!!
Much of this information, including items that I have not mentioned, is readily available on the Bath Croquet website and for this facility I would like to pay tribute to Dan Mills who has clearly worked hard over the last few weeks to bring it up-to-date. I would also like to pay tribute to Dan’s success at the beginning of the season with his PR campaign for attracting new members, a recruitment campaign that resulted initially in some 37 people signing up for the beginners lessons. In this regard, I would also like to pay tribute to Bob Whitaker and Mike Cope for coping so admirably with such a large number without getting any minor apoplexy – at least not all of the time. We finally achieved a substantial increase in membership as a result and, accordingly, further tributes must be made to Jean Tanser and Mo Bell for the excellent spread that they laid on for the Fun Evening that was held in early June to welcome and integrate the newcomers into the Club. I have to say, with a certain amount of pleasure on their behalf and on behalf of the other club members who were instrumental in making the evening a success, that our President on that occasion referred to it as being the most enjoyable social club event that he had attended since joining Bath Croquet Club 12 years earlier.
Good use was made of the gazebo, following its introduction during the Walter May Doubles in mid-May, and it was put to further good use during the Autumn Salver tournament, when the 2 good ladies already mentioned once more were able to repeat their culinary delights of early June with an al fresco supper, about which a number of our visitors from other clubs waxed eloquently lyrical. Mind you, none of this could have happened without the sterling work of the likes of Michael Brown, Nigel Amos, Richard Stopforth and Roger Bell, who had been willingly volunteered to put the gazebo up in the first place!
I started off by saying that I would like to spend a little time in speculating upon where we might be going in the coming years. Do you realise that the Bath Croquet Club was founded originally way back in 1896? It was resurrected in 1976 and Bath Croquet has certainly begun to blossom in recent years on the broader CA front, with the introduction of CA Tournaments. I can tell you now that we are going to add yet another in 2008 in the form of a “B” class advanced level tournament, which will start to bring us into line with some of the leading clubs in the country.
Additionally, it has been a particular hobby-horse of mine that this Club needs, indeed deserves, a proper club house to enable its members and visitors alike to enjoy the full benefits of the superb venue in which we find our playing area. Where else can you find a better and more majestic backdrop to a game of croquet than Bath Abbey? To achieve such a club house will require a lot of time and effort and willingness on the part of the
membership as a whole, not just on the part of your committee and a few willing volunteers. I am sure that I can look forward to receiving that support from you all in the months to come.
Thank you,
Roger Hayes
16th November 2007
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