Sept 10th & 11th, York Report by Richard Sanville
I was a late entry in the Short Croquet weekend tournament at York, my first venture into short croquet for about 20 years. SC is a version of association croquet played on half-size lawns with 70 or 75-minute time limits instead of 3 hours for full AC, allowing several rounds of games to be completed within a day. In this tournament, 2 points were awarded for winning a game (1 for a draw), plus bonus points for scoring 1+ hoops, scoring 7+ hoops, and pegging out both balls, which gives an incentive to finish a game within the time limit.
After the 5 rounds on Saturday I was in the running, having won four and drawn one game. However, the first game on Sunday was a bit of a disaster when I used all of my 2.5 bisques to set up a break and run hoop 1 (just) but then the lack of an available roquet gave my opponent – home player Lionel Stock – a perfect opportunity and I lost the game 1-14.
By the end of the next round, there were three of us, including Lionel, all on 28 points, although I had an inferior hoops total so I was effectively 3rd at that stage. I did manage to win my final two games fairly quickly, and in the end my nearest rival Lionel was unable to win his last game, giving me a victory by 4 points. The eventual runner-up was Hilary Bird of Guildford who finished on the same number of points as Lionel but more hoops scored.
