BLEWBURY CROQUET CLUB

The Founder's Cup

The Founder's Cup is played on a single day or weekend, and entry is by invitation (although volunteering is not unheard of).
The conditions are not set in stone, but the competition is generally designed to appeal to the more skilled croquet players.

Last year's competition was played as a handicap competition under advanced rules. The original date of 21st August proved difficult, and the event was finally played on Saturday 4th September.

Deirdre reports:

We had a very pleasant day of croquet on Saturday and we had four very good games.
The weather was lovely and we had time for lunch in The Red Lion.
Bernadine came to wish us well.
We drew out of a hat for who should play who in the morning, and David played Mike and won and Deirdre played Stuart and won. In the afternoon Stuart narrowly lost to Mike after missing his peg out with one of his balls, and David won against Deirdre, thus becoming the holder of the Founder's Cup for the second year running.

Congratulations to the worthy winner for 2010, David Spear.

The Prebendal Manor Cup

This handicap competition was played in two preliminary blocks, giving a winner and runner-up in each.
Play was to full bisque base 8, provided that when one player had a handicap of less than 8, the higher handicap player had bisques equal to the handicap difference.

The winners and runners-up of the two blocks played off on Sunday September 19th, in dry weather but with a penetrating wind. In the morning's play, Deirdre Cochrane beat Bruce Gallop +7 on time, Deirdre having two balls on rover when the whistle blew, and Paul Wolff beat David Spear +10, after David had shown how to play with a break starting, in consecutive strokes:
Run hoop 3; run hoop 4; roquet partner ball on South boundary; peel partner through hoop 6 (yes) while getting position on pioneer on hoop 5; and so on until a breakdown on penult allowed Paul back in.

In the afternoon's play, Deirdre never got into her stride and Paul Wolff ran out the winner +25.

Banded Blocks

This competition is divided into two distinct sections according to handicaps. Block A is for players of handicap 12 or less, and is played to advanced rules. Block B is for players of handicap 14 and over, on an all-play-all basis, handicap base 4.

Block A did not take place. In Block B, the winner was in doubt until the last minute, when Bruce Gallop won his final match against David Seed +2 on time; this brought Bruce the necessary number of wins, but not quite enough hoop points to overtake Paul Wolff at the top of the table.

The Icknield Cup

This golf croquet competition is played in two preliminary blocks. In each block, each competitor plays a match against each of the others. Each match is decided by the best of three 13-point games, in which the winner is the first to run seven hoops.
All games are level-play (ie no handicap).

Stuart Parks went undefeated through his qualifying rounds, but dropped out before the playoffs, allowing David Seed and David Vincent from Block 1 to contest the semifinals. The top two from Block 2 were Susan Tilbrook, undefeated in the qualifiers, and Ken Gotch, who edged out Katherine Bartlett on a count of hoops won and lost.

In the first semi-final, David Seed beat Ken Gotch 76 67 74 (very close!). In the second semi-final, David Vincent beat Susan Tilbrook 76 67 76 (couldn't be closer!). In the final, David Vincent beat David Seed 73 37 76 (Wow !). So David Vincent takes the Icknield Cup in 2010.

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