Sidmouth Herald published 2 July 2015
Sidmouth Croquet Club held its annual One Ball tournament last weekend, writes David Butler.
In this fun competition, played with a serious side to it, each player plays with only one ball, rather than the two normally used in a game. Sometimes, in an Association Croquet game, a player could be left with just the one ball, if his or her opponent had pegged out the other one.
Getting off to a good start in this game, by running the first hoop is highly beneficial as it can be difficult for the other player to catch up, or overtake.
But it does happen, especially if the opponent has bisques (extra turns) to use.
Day one was the turn of the lower handicap players, with handicaps ranging from one to 16. All players played four 13 point games. Some of these were very close matches. The semi-finalists were Ian Friedlander (7) playing Jeannette Pollock (16) and Colin Walls (5) against Peter Nelson (4.5).
Ian and Colin then played the Final, resulting in a win for Colin, running 13 hoops to Ian’s seven.
Saturday was the turn of players with handicaps 18 to 24. The semi-finalists were Edward Harford (20), a new member, playing against Muriel Philpott (18) and Andrew Thomas (18) playing against Anne Reece (18).
The final between Andrew and Muriel, resulted in an excellent win for Muriel - another sore of 13-7!
Both tournaments were managed efficiently by Helen Pryor, the croquet club’s internal tournament manager.