Eight players with handicaps ranging from -1 to 3 made a strong field for the Ayling Cup advanced association croquet tournament, including Mick Belcham visiting from Tunbridge Wells. Playing in hot sunshine all week-end made for a fine start to High Summer croquet. Peter Nash was the man to beat and started with convincing wins over Farooq and David Collins, +23 and +24, while Simon Whiteley started with a +26 win also over David. By 6pm Mark Ormerod had to leave his game against Peter to go to the theatre but returned at 9am to find himself down to one ball, Peter having pegged out his forward ball in his absence. Unfortunately he had rushed Mark’s ball on to the peg, ending his turn with 2 balls in the middle of the lawn and conceding a contact. Mark still needed some good early morning shooting which he managed with several successive hit-ins to peg out without Peter making any more progress- +8 to Mark.

The lawns by this time were speeding up in the hot sunshine, with Lawn 1 playing as well as ever, and newly re-laid Lawn 2 flat but bobbly with the grass still to fill in properly. Peter picked himself up from his loss to beat Mick Belcham +26 with a convincing triple peel, and looked like repeating that against Simon with 2 peels completed, including a spectacular pass roll penult peel from the north boundary, while rolling to his hoop 5 pioneer slightly misplaced midway between hoops 4 and 5. However he then stuck in 1-back, while Simon was for 2 and 4-back. Simon got going with a well-controlled standard triple peel to snatch victory +8, completing his first ever triple.

David Collins, John Reddish, Mick Belcham and Farooq had a number of close games and were a little unlucky to emerge with only 7 wins between them. Meanwhile Pierre Beaudry and Mark Ormerod had been going steadily and after 5 games these two plus Peter and Simon were in contention for the cup, with one game to play. This could have proved managerially embarrassing, requiring all sorts of complicated comparisons to determine the overall winner. Fortunately (for the manager), Mark Ormerod won his final game against David Collins, while Simon lost to Pierre, leaving Mark as the deserved overall winner on 5 wins out of six, with Peter, Pierre and Simon joint 2nd on 4 wins each. Mark has now won three successive club tournaments this year and is clearly the man to beat!

After a beautiful day playing croquet, it gives me great pleasure to relay to you that the Tumblers 2009 champions are :

Michael Goodman and Ken Cooke!

Very worthy winners indeed, second place went to Pat Goodman and Pierre Beaudry.

-Rob Burns

I’m pleased to report that Rob Burns has been crowned as the Champion of Greece 2009, having beaten no less a competitor (and the Manager of the Greek Open) than Kevin Carter in the final.

The other members of the Dulwich Contingent all performed creditably.  Paul Scruby who got to the Quarter Finals and came second in the Golf Doubles.  Pat Goodman who excelled in the Doubles and Golf Doubles.  Finally me who scored 75% in the 14 point consolation Singles, while only playing 2 matches!

Corfu is a delightful island as we discovered when we experienced Paul and Rob’s thrilling scenic tour of the mountainous region (save when we found ourselves passing the same property twice on our right in what for a short time became a circular tour!) The hotel just north of Corfu town at Kontokali Bay was all that could be desired, with Tony Blok’s 3 lawn centre just down the road in the marina complex.  We strongly recommend that you consider entering the Association or Golf tournaments to held here in September 2009 and 2010.  A lovely holiday as well as enjoyable Croquet gathering with representatives from clubs all over England, details from me.

 - Michael Goodman

 

Dulwich won a close fought SECF A league match away at Tunbridge Wells. In wet and windy conditions that everyone found difficult, Peter Nash and Ed Dymock won their doubles against Alex Jardine and Mick Belcham in the morning by a comfortable +14 but it took 31/2 hours. Simon Whiteley won his singles after a shaky start against John Hobbs +15. David Collins lost a close fought game against Mick Greasby (6) by -4 after 41/2hours. Mick has only taken up Association last summer having previously played Golf croquet but a winter of intensive croquet in the United States has clearly paid dividends.

Dulwich were therefore 2-1 up at lunchtime. Peter then won his singles game against Alex Jardine a relatively comfortable +18, although no sign of peels, and Simon also won his game against Mick Greasby +15, wrapping up the four games necessary to win the match. THis was fortunate as Ed proceeded to lose a close game against Mick Belcham -5 and David an even closer games against John Hobbs -2.

Were due to play the next round of the Mary Rose advanced association competition against Tunbridge Wells, when we will be without Peter Nash- so that promises to be a close match as well. Thanks to Farooq for organising the match.

The Dulwich Marauder for 2009 is Mark Ormerod. Mark and Ray both had 2 wins but Mark triumphed on the “who beat whom” basis.

Marauder 2009

Round	-	-	-	Result
1	M Ormerod	beat	T Tibbits	+5
1	R Hall	beat	E Brookfield	+13
2	M Ormerod	beat	R Hall	+2
2	T Tibbits	beat	E Brookfield	+9
3	E Brookfield	beat	M Ormerod	+18
3	R Hall	beat	T Tibbits	+6

Two Dulwich teams took part in the South Eastern Croquet Federation Team Handicap Doubles Tournament at Southwick.

Dulwich Team 2 [Farooq Malik, Rob Burns, Paul Scruby, Mark Ormerod (Saturday) and David Collins (Sunday)] were the outright winners of the trophy with 9 wins in 10 games.

Dulwich Team 1 [John Reddish, Ken Cooke, Robert Laver, Ray Hall (Saturday) and Edward Brookfield (Sunday)] came 2nd place with 7 wins in 10 games having a better net hoop total than the other runners-up who also won 7 games.

Dulwich Team 2

Dulwich	-	Opposition	Result
F Malik & R Burns	beat	Rother Valley A	+17
M Ormerod & P Scruby	beat	Rother Valley B	+8T
M Ormerod & R Burns	beat	Sussex A	+13
F Malik & P Scruby	beat	Sussex B	+4T
M Ormerod & P Scruby	beat	Caterham A	+11
F Malik & R Burns	beat	Guildford A	+4
D Collins & P Scruby	beat	Purley Bury	+4T
F Malik & R Burns	beat	Caterham	+2
D Collins & P Scruby	lost	Guildford & Godalming	-4T
F Malik & R Burns	beat	Purley Bury	+3T

Dulwich Team 1 [John Reddish, Ken Cooke, Robert Laver, Ray Hall (Saturday) and Edward Brookfield (Sunday)] came 2nd place with 7 wins in 10 games having a better net hoop total than the other runners-up who also won 7 games.

Dulwich Team 1

Dulwich	-	Opposition	Result
J Reddish & R Laver	lost	Caterham A	-1
R Hall + K Cooke	beat	Caterham B	+10
J Reddish & K Cooke	beat	Caterham B	+20
R Hall + R Laver	lost	Caterham A	-5
R Hall + K Cooke	beat	Rother Valley A	+1
J Reddish & R Laver	beat	Reigate Priory B	+7T
J Reddish & K Cooke	beat	Sussex County B	+23
E Brookfield & R Laver	lost	Sussex County A	-2T
J Reddish & E Brookfield	beat	Sussex County A	+10
K Cooke & R Laver	beat	Sussex County B	+8T

Click here to read Bill Arliss’s full report on the SECF website

The Mary Rose is an advanced play inter-club competition for players with handicaps of one or more. This year Dulwich drew Medway in the first round to be played at home on May 10th. Ed Dymock, David Collins, John Reddish and Mark Ormerod represented Dulwich. Each player plays two games, with the strongest 2 players playing doubles in the morning, and the other seven games are singles.

In what proved to be a tightly fought match, Dulwich trailed 1-2 at lunchtime, but finally triumphed 5-2 over a strong Medway team (average handicap 1.5), thereby progressing to the next round of the competition. The final game to finish provided some entertainment for the gallery. Mark came back from a long way behind, and in a tense finish pegged out David Parkins’ red ball, leaving David with yellow on penultimate. However, attempting to position his black ball close to the peg for the peg out, Mark accidentally rushed black onto the peg, prematurely ending his turn and leaving him with blue for the peg. Despite twice missing the peg with blue, Mark eventually won +1.

The Morning

Dulwich Team	-	Medway Team	Result
E Dymock(1) & D Collins(1.5)	lost	P Miles(1) & R Alexander(1)	-8
J Reddish(2)	lost	D Parkins(1)	-12
M Ormerod(3.5)	beat	P Mann(2.5)	+13

The Afternoon

Dulwich Team	-	Medway Team	Result
E Dymock(1)	beat	P Miles(1)	+8
D Collins(1.5)	beat	R Alexander(1)	+11
J Reddish(2)	beat	P Mann(2.5)	+5
M Ormerod(3.5)	beat	D Parkins(1)	+1

The first competition of the season, the Elsie King Cup was played over the weekend in mostly lovely sunny weather. There were 12 entrants including 3 from other clubs. 

 

The Cup was won by Mark Ormerod who beat a new member of the Club, Rob Burns in the final.  

There was also an Egyptian competition for those who were beaten in early rounds of the knock-out which was won by Geoff Gunson from Reigate who won the Cup in 2006 and 2008

Elsie King Knockout

Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4
	M Goodman(+5)
	T Tibbetts	|
		|
		|
		| M Goodman
		| M Ormerod(+14)	|
S Whiteley		|	|
R Hall(+12T)	|	|	|
	| R Hall	|	|
	| M Ormerod(w/o)		|
M Ormerod(+16)	|		|
M Bottomley			|
			| M Ormerod(+11)
			| R Burns
J Reynolds(+3T)			|
J Stair	|		|
	| J Reynolds		|
	| R Burns(+11T)	|	|
G Gunton	|	|	|
R Burns(+13T)		|	|
		| R Burns(+1T)	|
		| P Scruby
		|
		|
	P Scruby(+26)	|
	J Reddish

Farooq (who had won this event himself sometime ago) organised 15 entrants into blocks of five; three block winners to go to the area final in Eastbourne. Members were a bit dilatory in organising their matches but eventually Eric Driver, Julian Stair and Ken Cooke went forward.

 

To our great delight Ken won through to the National Final at Roehampton on 14 September – and proceeded to win the Championship. This was a magnificent effort, Ken having joined the Club only this year, some 20 years since he had previously played. Not only that, his handicap had been reduced again by the club handicapper and then came down again as a result of his wins in the final

-Ray Hall