Category: News

It was a long journey down to Bristol on 21st June for our second round Longman Cup match in the national AC handicap competition, although with Martin Seidel on his motorbike the journey was reduced to less than two hours.  John  Gosden and Richard Perkins with a combined handicap of 20 (4 & 16) played the doubles against the Bristol pair, who also had a combined handicap of 20 (6 & 14).  The Bristol pair elected to play alternate strokes while we stuck to each playing our own ball.  This is the first year where this option has been widely permitted; previously the two teams had to agree on which option to adopt for both teams and stick to playing their own ball if they couldn’t agree.  Early on John was able to take his ball round to 4-back in a couple of turns.  In the remaining 2½ hours Richard and the Bristol pair made steady progress one hoop at a time, but Bristol never managed to recover this initial deficit and we were convincing winners +10 on time.  The two singles matches were much tighter with Martin Seidel prevailing +1 and Bernie Phillips +2, both on time. 

In the afternoon with the confidence from his victory in the morning Martin was first to finish, winning comfortably (+12), closely followed by John (+21).  The other two singles matches both went to time.  Bernie took an early lead of 16 points but his opponent slowly clawed his way back but as time was called was still two hoops behind.  In a hard-fought, low-scoring game Richard built a reasonable lead while his opponent was struggling to get both balls off the first hoop.  In the last hour she made steady progress to nearly catch up but in the end Richard won by 3. 

The final result was 7-0 to Guildford & Godalming.  Well done to all the team!  Now on to the quarter final.

On Friday 21 June Team B, consisting of David Boyd, Graham Lamacraft, Martin Birch and Roseann Sullivan played West Worthing at home.  It was a clear warm day, and the lawns were running fast.

West Worthing won both the first doubles matches.  In both cases the scores were very close.

The singles matches were also dominated by West Worthing. Graham won his match, and Martin and Roseann’s matches both timed out, with WW in the lead in both cases.

At this point it was time to enjoy the delicious whiskey cake baked by Maggie Boyd, from a family recipe.

The last set of matches saw mixed results.  Graham again won his single, however West Worthing won the other 2 matches.

By this time it was after 5:30PM, and all agreed it was an enjoyable afternoon.

On the evening of 12 June, the club was the venue of a corporate event held by Charle Russell Speechlys LLP. The night was clear, and the lawns looking great. Besides the drink and food provided by Charles Russell Speechlys, there was a short introduction to croquet as well as a mini tournament held. A good time was had by all.

It was a typical day for the summer of 2024 with some sunshine, some very threatening dark clouds, a rather chilly wind but it hotted up at times. Three intrepid croqueteers from GGCC – John Gosden, Peter Adams and Andrew Lockwood – made it to Woking Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club for their B tournament for handicaps 3 and over. The sixteen entrants were broken into four groups of four to all play all in the morning on their four lawns – well two lawns and two lawn tennis courts which had their inconsistencies. John won all three of his morning group matches, with two going to the golden hoop. Peter and Andrew won two out of three and so all three progressed to the main knockout in the afternoon. John beat Andrew in his first tight match of the afternoon and then went on to beat Peter in the second round in another 7-6 thriller. Andrew went on to finish eighth, Peter played incredibly well to finish third. John was now in the final against the hard hitting Konstantin Yudintsev and it proved to be a compelling and hard fought final with John finally coming out the winner on another golden hoop!

Many congratulations to John on his win which qualifies him for his CQE GC Silver Merit badge and for the National B Level final later in the year.

Six players signed up to play a GC Handicap competition to win PJ’s Pot and at the same time aim to qualify for the area final of the National GC All England Handicap Competition. With six players a straightforward all-play-all competition was in order.

With GC Advantage rules it was an uphill struggle for those with lower handicaps as starting on a minus number of hoops was taxing in the extreme. The most difficult match was between Bernie Phillips starting on -4 hoops against Julia Schroder having a 2 hoop start! With some tense interchanges Bernie managed a win against some excellent play by Julia. Other matches were equally difficult Andrew Lockwood’s match against Brian Bartholomew saw starts of -2 to Andrew and +2 to Brian.

Not surprisingly our medium handicapped players fared best. Richard Perkins had 3 wins and against the odds Bernie, playing off a 2 handicap, also had 3 wins. Vernon Salt (7) and Brian Bartholomew (9) each won 4 matches. Under the Advantage rules for tied games Brian won the tournament to receive PJ’s Pot and a place in the GC All England Handicap area final.

Well done to all players – thank you for supporting this competition.

Andrea Huxley, manager

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After a long journey to Kington Langley for our first round Longman Cup match (national AC handicap competition) the sun shone as we got underway at 10:15am.  Games were timed at 3 hours to enable Bernie to be finished in time to catch a train to Bangor at 6pm.  John Gosden and Tim Dutton got away to a good early lead in the doubles, but judicious use of their two bisques and two excellent breaks of 7 and 8 hoops enabled our opponents to win.  At this point Ian Fugeman was clawing his way back to a narrow lead but Bernie Phillips was several hoops behind.  In the turn where time was called Bernie made a good break to take the lead and win by three hoops.  2-1 to Guildford & Godalming at lunch.

After an excellent lunch of home-made quiche and raspberry and almond tart the afternoon singles got underway.  John lost his game in two hours with his opponent continuing his reliable break control from the morning.  Bernie was well ahead in his game while Ian was well behind.  Tim’s match was very close but he managed to maintain a one or two hoop lead.  After his opponent had spent his bisques, Tim forged ahead to win comfortably, closely followed by Bernie.  As is his wont, Ian recovered late in the game and had a chance to move ahead in his final turn but just fell short, losing by two hoops.  The overall result was 4-3 to Guildford & Godalming, giving us revenge for losing to Kington Langley by the same score in the second round last year.  Well done and thanks to all of the team. 

Team B travelled to Reigate Priory to play their first match in the Croquet South East (previously SECF) Advantage League.

Having eventually found the club, (trickier than expected due to Sat Nav taking us to the far reaches of the enormous, very attractive site), we discovered that their sole lawn was 3/4 size. It took a bit of getting used to but didn’t deter us.

Round 1 saw Richard Perkins and Hilary Bird winning their doubles match, while Janet Curtecka and Martin Birch had a more difficult match. In Round 2 , 3 of us won our singles, meaning we had a promising lead of 4-2 when we stopped for lunch.

Reigate’s hospitality was wonderful and most welcomed – the delicious 3 course meal being their way of apologising for several of us having to have byes, necessitated by scheduling 9 games on 1 lawn. Perhaps it was actually a cunning plan to make us less alert for Round 3…….

As it turned out, we lost the next 2 singles, leaving a nail biting doubles to seal a victory for the team.

All in all it was a most enjoyable day, made even sweeter by the final result 5-4 to GGCC!

Guildford & Godalming beat East Dorset 4-2

Guildford & Godalming achieved a hard-fought win against a strong team from East Dorset. The teams were evenly matched on paper and so it proved to be. On what was a very hot day, Guildford & Godalming held a narrow lead at the lunch break 2-1, winning the two singles but losing the doubles. Rejuvenated by a splendid al fresco lunch, the players headed back onto the sun-drenched lawns for the round of four singles. The first two games to finish secured Guildford & Godalming the two points they needed to win the match. East Dorset took the 6th match to take the score to 4-2. The final match did not conclude, by mutual consent, when it was evenly poised at 1 game all and 5-5 as the result could not affect the outcome of the match and the visitors had a long journey home. Thank you to both teams for a very enjoyable day’s croquet.

The teams were Guildford & Godalming: Phil Davies, Douglas Shand, John Gosden and Peter Adams. East Dorset: Andy Dochniak, Tim Hughes, Keith Southern and Sandra Allan.

Last Saturday morning members gathered at the club house for the first “bacon butty” social. After chatting and enjoying breakfast, the presentation of awards for the winter competitions were distributed by Andrea Huxley.

Winners were:

• Golf Handicap Winter League 7+: Frankie Lea
• Golf Handicap Winter League -6: Graham Lamcraft
• Golf Level Winter League: Douglas Shand
• Golf Doubles Winter League: Wendy and Andrew Lockwood
• AC Winter League: Peter Adams

After the awards were presented members took advantage of the dry weather, and took to the lawns. All four lawns were in use playing short, association and golf croquet.

As there were many able bodied croquet members present, a team was put together by Andrew Jackson, comprising of Andrew Lockwood, Phil Tremble, Julie Tremble, Ian Taylor and Vernon Salt, to install the new memorial bench. The bench was donated to the club by the family of Barry Gould. Barry was a loyal and active member of the club for many years. The club wishes to thank Barry’s family for this generous and fitting donation.

The “bacon butty” social was deemed a success and we plan to have more in the future.