Woking and Dulwich both fielded strong teams. We had Pierre and Simon Carter with Ken Watson and Simon Whiteley as support. Their team comprised Jeff Dawson, Malcolm Bigg, Mike Town and Bernard Jones.

In the morning, Pierre and Simon C won their (best of three games) doubles match 2-0 and Ken went down to Mike Town 0-2. Simon W came back from 0-1 to win a close contest against Bernard Jones 2-1. Bernard showed excellent touch on an unfamiliar and fast lawn with fine positional shots but Simon responded with good long clearances and long hoops. This put Dulwich 2-1 up by lunchtime. After lunch Simon C beat  Malcolm Bigg 2-0 but Pierre was beaten 2-0 by Jeff Dawson, and Simon W lost by by the same score to Mike Town. So it was all riding on Ken’s match against Bernard Jones.

Ken lost the first game but took the second game on the 13th hoop. In the deciding game Ken built up a 5-1 lead with some excellent long hoops. Bernard held on with steady positional play to draw back to 6-4. He then took on a series of long clearances at hoop 11, until Ken was finally given a good shot at the hoop to win the third game 7-4. This gave Dulwich the rubber by 4 matches to 3.

Dulwich were beaten 4-2 plus one tied match in the quarter-final of the National Golf Croquet Team Competition on 22 July at Ryde, Isle of Wight.

Club historians please refute, but this was probably the first Dulwich team to compete off the mainland. This is a level play competition and the Dulwich team were Captain Simon Carter (0), Pierre Beaudry (0), Ken Watson (3) and Gloria Watson (8).

Dawn was barely breaking across South London rooftops when the intrepid foursome made their way to Portsmouth and Southsea for the crossing, mallets jostling bemused commuters.

Ryde Lawn Tennis and Croquet club is pleasantly situated on the outskirts of town with four full-size lawns - a bit on the sluggish side we found. This inhibited the star pairing of Simon and Pierre who lost their doubles 4-7, 7-5, 5-7 to David Willett (2) and Alan Truckle (2) who controlled their balls with local knowledge. Ken failed to build from winning the second game against Richard Harris (3) and lost 4-7, 7-6, 1-7. Gloria contested hoops well but the accuracy of her lower handicapped opponent Robin Thornton (3) was too much for her, losing 3-7, 3-7.

So, Team Dulwich were 3-0 down at lunch - if lunch had existed! (ask Simon). Tummies rumbling Pierre and Simon stormed back to win their singles against their doubles opponents 7-4, 6-7, 7-1,  7-6, 7-3 respectively. Gloria again competed well but lost to Richard Harris 7-3, 7-3. Ken was tied with Robin Thornton 7-6, 4-7, when the result of the match was beyond doubt.

Back to the hover, back to the train, back to dinner!

Having lost the ‘virtual’ toss, Team Dulwich trecked two and a half hours from South East London to the depths of Bedfordshire. We were made very welcome by Len Buckingham and after the all important cup of tea, play commenced. Leighton have two lawns, both of which have very individual characteristics. It would be fair to say that Team Dulwich have never played on such entertaining lawns! Big hitters Simon Carter and Pierre Beaudry soon learned that long clearance shots were a matter of luck rather than judgement and reigned in their play to beat Leighton’s Richard Keighley and Eve Buckingham 7-3, 7-2. In the singles, Dulwich’s Gloria Watson had a close match against Roger Stroud, just winning 7-4, 5-7, 7-6. Rising star Ken Watson found his Leighton opponent, David Ball, too difficult to beat and lost 6-7, 5-7.

Dulwich v Leighton-Linsdale 3 June

After lunch, Pierre found his form with the lawn and beat Eve 7-0,7-2. Richard also found his form, with very precise placements and good ball control to take both games against Simon to tie break with Simon eventually winning 7-6,7-6.

Ken had more success in his second singles, beating Roger Stroud 7-5, 7-4. However, Leighton’s man of the match David Ball again proved his form by beating Gloria 7-2, 7-4.

A splendid day was rounded off by a delicious home made tea. The fruit cake was particularly tasty.

Final score Dulwich 5 Leighton Linsdale 2.

Jan de Swarte

The Club round was a (best of 3 games) tournament over two months. Nineteen members entered at the start of May,when take-up of games was slow but increased towards the end of June. By this time Michael Goodman had distinguished himself by playing nine matches, but it was Janette, Gloria, Jan & Pat who went forward to the Area Final, held at Dulwich, where there were 15 players drawn from eight clubs.

There were 3 blocks of five so that everyone played four games and block winners were promoted to the National final. There followed a single round repêchage for those placed second and third in their blocks; this included Gloria, Pat and Jan, but the former two narrowly failed to prevail.

The National final was held at the East Dorset Club which has five excellent lawns. Jan gained a great deal of experience, but no prizes. The final round was contested between two 15-year olds one of whom (from Ramsgate) had played in our Area final.

I hope that we shall have even more participants next season. This is one of the best ways of learning and improving your game.

-Ray Hall