Ealing Croquet Club

The latest Ealing match played at Enfield Croquet Club on Monday 22 May in the knock-out GC Inter-Club Shield, known as the Murphy Shield, was somewhat of a marathon, starting at 10.30am and finishing at 7.15pm.

The Ealing team comprised Tony Elliott (Captain), David Graham, Simon Turner and Fred White-Overton. For those who are interested, you can see the scoresheet here.

The rules dictate that each team must have an aggregate handicap of at least 12. The Enfield team included a player who had only just gone down to a 1 handicap, but was eligible under the rules, so it promised to be a close match, particularly as it was level play. Each round was decided by the best of three games, so it was going to be a long day.

In the morning sessions Ealing took a decisive lead, with the younger team members, Fred and Simon, winning both of their singles. Tony and David  had drawn one game each in the doubles, but it was already lunch time, so it was decided to defer the final deciding game until the results of the afternoon singles was known. However, by the end of the afternoon Ealing and Enfield each had won three of their games, so the doubles had to be resumed to decide the outcome.

This did not go well for Ealing, who trailed 3-6 on hoop nine, so Enfield only needed one hoop to win the match. However, when the going gets tough, the oldies get going, running three hoops in a row to reach 6-6 on hoop twelve. The nail-biting finish resulted in Ealing running the golden hoop to win the match 4 games to 3 overall, by which time both players and spectators were exhausted. It only remained for Ealing to head west into the sunset and look forward to the next round.

Article: David Graham

The Ealing Team