New Members help Bath’s Short-Croquet Team to Victory

Bath opened their account in the new Short Croquet League with a solid 10:6 home win on Sunday 4th July over our local rivals Camerton & Peasedown.
The Southwest Federation have introduced this league for the first time this year, and the 4-player format, where all play all, is designed to encourage high bisquers to get involved, because at least half of the 16 games must be played by people with AC handicaps of 16+.
Fortunately Alex Hudson, who joined towards the end of last year, and whose natural talent enabled him to win the Bath heat of the National One-Ball Competition in April, was still an HC16 – mainly because he has played no competitive Association Croquet at all! Alex occupied 3rd place on the team, with Martin Alabaster, who only joined at the end of April but is already an HC20, supporting us in 4th place. Both acquitted themselves very well, particularly since they were complete newcomers to short croquet. Indeed Alex won all four of his games quite easily, pegging out well within the 75 minutes allowed, usually without needing all his bisques. It was no surprise to anyone when Roger Hayes, attending as Match Referee, dropped him to HC12 at the end of the afternoon!
Paul Francis won three of his games (now SC 0.5) and Philip de Glanville (SC1) had two wins. Both struggled a bit with opponents benefiting from a significant number of bisques.