On Thursday 16th June 2022, the Broadwas team of Roger Wood, Stuart Smith, Eileen Holt and John Guy set off to travel to Church Stretton to play in the West Midlands Level Play Golf Croquet League. Eileen was making her debut in this competition, having captained the Golf Croquet handicap team for several years. Having lost their first game earlier in the season, the team needed a big win – at least 12 games out of the 18 available needed to be won to earn bonus points to keep their slim hopes of the league title alive.
The lawns at Church Stretton were almost bare in places but had a lot of clover in other parts, meaning that every shot was at a different pace depending on the amount of each surface that had to be crossed. The Church Stretton players were, on paper, less experienced than those of Broadwas but their ‘local knowledge’ and good play meant that the majority of games were very close affairs.
The first round of 4 singles ended with the scores at 2 – 2 but the Broadwas players gradually got to grips with the lawns and won the both the second and third rounds of singles by 3 games to 1. So, a decent lead of 8 – 4 to Broadwas at lunch.
The fourth round of singles was also won 3 – 1 giving Broadwas an unassailable 11 – 5 lead with just the doubles to come. However, Broadwas needed to win at least one of the doubles to earn a bonus point for a ‘big win’ as well as another bonus point for winning away from home.
Broadwas managed to win both doubles to achieve this, giving them a 13 – 5 victory and 5 league points. Special mention should go to Roger and John who both won all their games during the day.
We concluded with drinks and excellent cakes provided by our very hospitable hosts. In fact the cake was so good that Roger took several slices home!!!
John Guy 18/6/22