Sept 9th & 10th, York
Richard competed as defending champion in the York Short Croquet tournament (a version of AC played on smaller lawns) featuring 12 players mostly from the north of England.
He was in the lead by one point going into the last of nine rounds, when he faced closest rival Chris Williamson (Penrith) in a “winner takes all” game, but Chris played well and won 14-2 to claim the trophy. Despite winning only 5 of his 9 games, Richard finished joint runner-up alongside Lionel Stock (York), having gained quite a few bonus points along the way for pegging out within the time limit in the games won, and scoring at least 7 points in most of the games lost.