Riverside Park, Chester-le-Street DH3 3PW
Agenda, minutes, news about members etc.
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.
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!
Heavy rain is forecast for today, so the usual afternoon session is cancelled.
We shall be playing one of our regular friendly matches against a team from Bishop Monckton on Thursday 30 May at Chester-le-Street. Consequently there will be no roll-up play that day.
Congratulations to Roger Carpenter (right) on winning the John Cotes Trophy this year beating Peter Tymms (left) in the final 7-3, and to Susan Martin (centre) who won the plate competition.
Apart from a few scattered spots of rain, the weather stayed good throughout and everyone had an enjoyable afternoon. Many thanks to the various members who provided good quantities of delicious cakes.
Play has been cancelled today due to rain (current and expected). The weather gods permitting, we shall be opening as usual onWednesday
Weather permitting we shall be holding the annual competition for the John Cotes Trophy (GC handicap singles knockout) on Monday 31 July,, which means that the day is restricted to club members only and guests won’t be able to be accommodated.
The Croquet Durham team of Roger Carpenter, Dave Parsons, Tony McCann and Nigel Martin travelled down to Ashby for our quarter-final Murphy Shield match on Monday 26 July, and came away victorious by 5 matches to 2.
During a sweltering day on parched (and fast) greens, we won the morning session 2-1 with the doubles match involving Roger and Nigel going to three games before they prevailed.
We won the afternoon session 3-1, but things were much closer than they seemed with Dave and Tony winning each of their matches on the golden hoop in the third and deciding games.
Many thanks for the warm reception and hospitality from Ashby, who we have now played four times in the competition (we lead 3-1 thus far).
Our opponents in the semi-final will be High Wycombe or Watford.
Durham won their second game in the GC League with an 11.5 – 6.5 victory over Tyneside at Exhibition Park in Newcastle, to maintain our unbeaten record in 2021.
The team of Dave, Derek, Nigel and Roger fought a close match in sweltering conditions, with the match outcome being decided only on the last set of matches.
Many thanks to our hosts for their hospitality.
We started the revamped Croquet North GC League on Saturday 3 July with a steady victory over Auckland by 13 matches to 5.
Our team of Andrew Carpenter, Nigel Martin, Dave Parsons, and Peter Tymms, had a very good first half against Auckland’s Carol and Eugene Brady, Marcia Henderson, and Jane Pringle, and were leading 8-1 at lunch. The afternoon session was more closely contested with Durham prevailing 5-4.
Durham together with Auckland, Ripon and Tyneside make up Group 2 of the League and will play each other home and away. The winners of Groups 1 and 2 will then play off for the overall title.
Progress in the leagues may be seen on the Croquet North web site.