Riverside Park, Chester-le-Street DH3 3PW
Con gratulations to our team of Arthur, Kathleen, Natalie, and Richard on winning their final Division 3 League match against Tyneside 13½ – 4½.
In the final league table, every team, bar Tyneside, won 3 matches and lost 2, so that the ranking was decided on games won. On this basis Durham came second behind Alnmouth.
Congratulations all round.
We had a very enjoyable John Cotes Trophy day today (29 August)., with arm sunshine for most of the afternoon. After some very competitive matches the eventual winner was Peter Tymms, who beat Kathleen Penrose in the final. The Plate competition was won by George Cansino in a novel extremely tight 3-way 1-ball competition.
Congratulations to everyone who took part and especially those who provided the tasty morsels that kept us all going.
We have our final home league match on Saturday 31 August when the second team will be hosting Alnmouth. Consequently there will be no roll-up play, although spectators and cheerleaders will, of course, be welcome.
Our first team played its final Division 1 match in the Croquet North GC League away against Bamburgh on Friday 23 August.
Fortunately the wet weather had disappeared by the time we arrived, but the strong winds continued (with lots of sun) for the rest of the day,
Unfortunately, it took our team of Andrew, Dave, Nigel, and William a good while to get used to the lawns at Bamburgh, so that we comprehensively lost the first two sessions (although all the games were very close). Thereafter we had the better of the the results, but not enough to overcome the deficit, so that we lost the match 10½ – 7½.
Many thanks to Bamburgh for their hospitality, especially the excellent home-made scones topped with home-made Scottish(!) raspberry jam.
The 2024 tournament for the John Cotes Trophy (knock-out handicap) will, take place on Thursday 29 August starting promptly at 1.30 pm.
Please note that this is a member-only competition.
Firstly, we are at home to Belsay in Division 1 on Saturday 27 July, so there will be no club play that day.
We have had two matches scheduled in the last week,. The first was on Wednesday 17 July also in Division 1 away to Alnmouth, where, our team of Arthur, Dave, Malcolm, and Peter narrowly lost 11-7.
The second was due to be played away to Tyneside in Division 3 on Saturday 20 July, but had to be postponed due to a break-in at their pavilion on the Friday night. The match is due to be re-arranged later in the season.
Our quarter-final match in the 2024 Murphy Shield competition took place against Chester on Thursday 18 July on their lawns at Westminster Park, Chester.
The morning session ended all square with each side winning one of the singles and the double being tied at one game each with the3 deciding game being deferred to later if necessary.
The afternoon matches also finished even 2-2, so with the match tied at 3-3 it was necessary to play the deciding game in the doubles. This turned out to be a tense affair with both sides ganging and losing advantage, but Chester eventually prevailed 7-5 and so go on to meet Watford in the semi-final.
Many thanks to Chester for their warm hospitality (and for providing very warm weather too), and to Andrew, Nigel, Roger and William for making up the team.
Wednesday 3 July saw us travelling to Yorkshire for our reverse friendly fixture against Bishop Monkton just south of Ripon.
While the morning was pretty overcast, we managed to avoid the rain and to have a very enjoyable day, eventually winning by 124 hoops to 112.
Many thanks to Bishop Monkton for their hospitality, especially the cakes after the close of play!
We shall be playing our away friendly match against Bishop Monkton on Wednesday 3 July. As most of our regular players and all our key holders are involved it has been decided that t ere will be no play at Chester-le-Street that afternoon.
The Division 3 match took place at Belsay on Friday 28 June, where our second team narrowly lost to their second team 8-10. Many thanks to Kathleen, Ken, Richard and Susan for making up the team.