Ealing Croquet Club

Ealing got their Croquet South East AC U League campaign off to a winning start on Saturday 10th August with a solid win against our old friends from Hampstead Heath.

It was theoretically a home game for Hampstead, but held at Ealing as Hampstead only have one lawn. This meant that the visitors provided lunch, as well as some excellent flapjacks baked by one of their players.

The lawns were challengingly fast in places, especially around some hoop approaches, and became even more so in the afternoon when the sun emerged with a vengeance. The match was played full bisque with a base of 6, which meant that in games between higher handicappers both players received bisques.

In the morning doubles Stephen Harbron and Sean Doherty easily saw off minus player Phil Cordingley and newcomer Jonah Danziger +19, although Phil did a great job of introducing Jonah to the intricacies of match play.

Simon Tuke scraped past Sandy Nairne +6T, and David Graham lost to Tom Hankinson by the classic margin of -1T.

After a very convivial lunch, battle was joined for the afternoon session. Simon lost -9T to Phil in a rather scrappy game, Stephen had a solid +13 win over Sandy, while David just managed a win against Jonah +2T.

The performance of the day came from Sean, who used just one bisque to take his first ball round. Tom decided not to use his bisques immediately, and Sean promptly went round and finished in his next turn, to win +26 with the opponent having ten bisques standing; a classic example of how (or how not) to tackle full-bisque play.

Congratulations to the Ealing team, and thanks for representing the club so capably.

Report by Simon Tuke