SWF Short Lawns Tournament at Nailsea – A Tale of Two Teams

The club started its competitive season with the annual South West of England Short Croquet tournament by fielding two teams in Division 2 of the tournament. Our B team included Neil Pinker making his tournament debut. With 3 out of 4 wins for both Philip de Glanville and Bob Hart and, two each for Neil and Klim Seabright the team finished joint first with Sidmouth. Neil should be greatly encouraged by his performance and should look forward to a successful season.

This meant a ‘peg shoot out’ to decide who would be promoted to Division 1. Sidmouth took the lead with their first attempt and although Bath went very close to hitting the peg our luck was out.

Whilst the B team was battling at the right end of the table, the A team faced a huge uphill battle as a result of an unfortunate accident which robbed them of a fielding a full team of four.

The three remaining players put up a brave fight with both Richard Jelly and Paul Francis recording 3 out of 4 wins each. Ironically, two of their wins came against Bath B! Meanwhile, Lynne Passfield faced strong opponents and had narrow defeats in all her games. On another day, luck would have favoured her.

As a result, this team will play in division 3 next year.