Report by John Guy
On 17th July the Broadwas Assocation Croquet team of Stuart Smith (handicap 4.5), Ian Lambert (9), David Kaner (14) and captain John Guy (5) assembled in the Herefordshire countryside to play Eardisley. The home side comprised Tony Johnston (7), David White (14), John Richardson (14) and John Lee (20) so Broadwas knew they were facing a hard match as well as an awful lot of bisques.
We were hoping for a quiet peaceful day of croquet, with hopefully the right result. We did not get the peace and quiet we hoped for, since Andy the carpenter was building a new pavilion next to Lawn 2, so loads of sawing and hammering punctured the peace throughout the day.
In the morning’s doubles encounters, Ian Lambert and John Guy had to give 7.5 bisques to Tony and John Lee (too many John’s) and decided to play the newer format of ‘Alternate Strokes’. Despite a valiant effort there were just too many bisques and Broadwas went down 15 -16 with Ian’s last long roll shot ending just short so that another hoop could not be scored. It was just a ‘Bisque too Far’.
In the two morning singles games, both Stuart (playing John Richardson) and David Kaner (playing David White) were ahead for pretty well all the time and both won by big margins – Stuart by 26 – 15 and David Kaner by 26 – 11. Stuart did particularly well as he was playing against 9.5 bisques.
Lunch was taken, and then the noise levels increased tremendously as the farmer adjacent to the Eardisley grounds decided to mow his fields with a massive tractor with two huge mowers attached. This brought out all the birds of prey (I was told Red Kites and Kestrels but I am a city boy so I don’t know) who were following the mowers looking for their lunch – lots of diving and swooping after small animals.
Talking of birds of prey, David White (with 9 bisques) started the afternoon with some tremendous play and good use of bisques to lead John Guy 17 – 0 after 90 minutes of their three hour afternoon match. John did try to battle back after the bisques were running down but David kept a couple in reserve and eventually won 22 – 19.
If croquet ever becomes a televised sport, the cameras should concentrate on Stuart Smith who creates more jeopardy than any other player. Facing Tony, he immediately ran 11 hoops to lead 11 – 0 after 20 minutes. Two hours later he was losing 20 – 13. Someone then inserted a new Duracell battery and he came back to win 26 – 24 just as time was called.
In the other singles games, both Broadwas players faced a lot of bisques. Ian was playing John Richardson and David Kaner playing John Lee. Both Broadwas players played cagily initially, to try to run down the opponent’s bisques and after two hours or so the scores were very close, but few bisques remained. At this point the Broadwas pair both attacked with the speed of a peregrine falcon in a stoop – David got in front to win 17 – 9 and Ian pulled well away to peg out and win 26 -11.
So a great win by 5 – 2 with excellent company and all played in a very good spirit.
It was only much later, at home, when John Guy (who is League Organiser) was updating the league table with results that he realised that the win had made Broadwas uncatchable in the league and therefore LEAGUE CHAMPIONS with games still to play.
Come on – all sing together – WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS MY FRIENDS, AND WE’LL KEEP ON FIGHTING ‘TILL THE END etc. etc.
So huge congratulations not only to today’s team but also to Ian Dampney and Janet Bedford who played in matches earlier in the season.
This means that Broadwas can represent the West Midlands in next year’s national competition against the winners of other Federations if we can face the travel involved. (At least it’s not as far as Czechia).
John Guy 20/7/24