Winning Start to Short Lawns League Season

Bath’s Short Croquet Restricted Handicap team opened their account on Saturday 7th May, with a convincing 10-6 win away to Winterborne Valley.

Winterborne were Kingston Maurward until about 2 years ago, when they had to ‘up sticks’ and move to the delightful village of Winterborne Stickland, where they have found a new home on a repurposed football field belonging to the village Sports Club. The two lawns created so far have a visible N/S slope and are a bit bumpy, and we had to double-bank on half-lawns, but everyone on our team quickly settled to the less than ideal playing conditions, and very much appreciated the warm welcome we received. And the weather was simply glorious.

Neil Pinker, who started playing less than a year ago, has made great strides forward and was our outstanding player, winning all four of his games and getting to the peg well inside the allotted 75 minutes in all but one of them. He is now an AC16 handicap, but not for much longer we think! Philip de Glanville, our team captain, also won his four games and his SC handicap has dropped by a notch as a result. Tony Jackson added to our tally with two good wins, and Lynne Passfield (recruited at short notice to fill Alex Hudson’s place in the team) fell to Winterborne’s strongest player but had three other very close games, losing each of them only at the ‘Golden Hoop’ stage.

Next up the team play Camerton & Peasedown, away, at the end of May.