On 4th May the Broadwas team of John Guy, Stuart Smith, Gill Brooks and Roger Wood started their defence of the West Midlands Association Croquet League title by entertaining Kenilworth at Broadwas.
In the morning session the weather was overcast with some occasional light rain showers. All the Broadwas players started well, and gradually eased further ahead as play progressed. Roger finished first, beating Mervyn Harvey 26 – 15. The other two matches went to time – Stuart defeating Philip Wood 15 -8 while the doubles pairing of Gill and John beat Cliff Daniels and Philip Mander 16 – 9.
So lunch was taken with Broadwas 3 – 0 in the lead. Everyone was very pleased to be off the lawns for lunch as the heavens opened for a 10 minute cloudburst.
This made the lawns much slower at the start of the afternoon session which involved 4 games of singles. This seemed to suit the Kenilworth players who were much more in the games at the start of the afternoon with most games being very close. As the sun came out and the lawns dried Broadwas started to take control and Stuart finished first beating Cliff 26 – 12. This gave Broadwas an unassailable 4 – 0 lead. In a very tight game Gill used her bisques well to keep well in the game with Mervyn but eventually ran out of bisques and Mervyn finished the game winning 26 – 18. The other 2 games went to time but Broadwas triumphed in both – John beating Philip Wood 22 – 16 and Roger beating Philip Mander 22 – 9.
An excellent win for Broadwas by 6 games to 1 against some good opponents. This gave Broadwas the 3 points for winning and also a bonus point for winning 6 games out of 7.
Let us hope this vein of form can continue.
John Guy 5/5/22