Finals Day 12th September 2020

We were blessed with glorious weather for the GC and the AC Finals Day, held on Lawn 1, and watched in the late summer sunshine by about a dozen club members from a wide range of vantage points around the lawn, carefully socially distanced.

Tony Curson and Clare Fletcher, our GC League finalists, opened proceedings at 10am with an extremely hard-fought first game in their best-of-three match. Every hoop was closely contested and it was only after about an hour and 15 minutes of that first game that Clare scored hoop 11 with a spectacular jump shot, and then almost immediately went on to score hoop 12 with a very impressive, and rather unexpected, in-off, winning 7:5. The second game, however, took only about 20 minutes and went to Tony 7:2, and he then polished off the third 7:3, winning the Bath Salver for the second year in succession.
His trophy was presented, on the lawn, by BCC Chairman Andrew Willis.

In the afternoon we were entertained by an inordinately long AC final between Bob Hart and Nigel Dawson Cocks. The match featured a great deal of interactivity because neither player could establish a consistent fluency. After just over 4 hours, by which time Nigel had inched ahead to take a 6 hoop lead at 18:12, both players agreed to the introduction of 12 Wharrad turns so as to make sure the match ended before dusk! Nigel made no further progress, while Bob very gradually began to close the gap between them. It was on the very last of these turns that Nigel gave Bob the opportunity to establish a final break of 7 hoops, which he constructed and played with great skill, taking his back ball round to the Peg and leaving Nigel no chance to hit in and regain the lead. The final result was 21:18 and Bob was formally presented with the League Salver by Philip de Glanville, Finals Day Manager, since by then it was almost 6.30pm and everyone else had drifted away!