AC Association Croquet

This Tournament is a new Association Croquet singles competition at Watford, held for the first time this year, and open to members of the national Croquet Association. It is also listed in the CA fixtures calendar.

Watford Open Midweek AC Advanced
Tournament results by year:

Title: Watford Midweek Open AC Advanced Tournament
Handicaps: AC: 8-
Date: Wednesday 15 - Thursday 16 May 2019
Number of places: 16
Secretary: Email: click on link to send an email
Phone: 01923 241582
Address: please ask, or log in and obtain it from the CA member's directory
Manager: Simon Hathrell
RoT: Arthur Reed
Trophies: 'A' block: the Cassiobury Cup
'B' block: the Cassiobury Salver
Entries: Allocation: 17 March. Closing: 8 May.
Those who wish to enter and pay online may do so through the CA website in same way as entering a CA Tournament.
Alternatively, postal entries should be submitted together with entry fee using the standard CA Tournament entry form.
Entry fee: £15 (CA Premium members).
Pay online (see above) or by cheque to the secretary, payable to "Watford (Cassiobury) Croquet Club".
Format: AMD, provisionally Class Singles with two independent blocks.
Notes:
  1. Play starts at 09:30 each day.
  2. Refreshments and a light tea are provided free of charge but please bring your own lunch.

A block winner Nigel Polhill
with the new Cassiobury Cup

B block winner Alan Clark
with the new Cassiobury Salver

On 15th and 16th May The Watford club ran its inaugural 4-court AC tournament, and its first 2-day open tournament for 13 years, following the laying of its new 4th court and levelling of its 3rd court back in late 2017. These two new playing surfaces were noticeably slower than the older courts 1 and 2, but they should settle down to good courts once the grass covering has matured.

The entry was split by handicap into two independent blocks of 8 playing a (semi-)flexible Swiss format.

In the 'A' block the manager avoided the embarrassment of winning his own tournament by losing a closely contested final game to Nigel Polhill, leaving both players as the only two on 4/5 wins and Nigel as the overall winner on a simple who-beat-whom tie-breaker.

In the 'B' block, notwithstanding very pleasant weather conditions the players found it difficult to complete games within 3 hours, and after the first round it became necessary to impose time limits, with 3 out of 4 games in the third round having to be pegged down overnight and the majority of the remaining games being curtailed by the timer. At the end of the second day there were 3 players tied on 4/5 wins, with Alan Clark emerging as the clear winner having beaten both the other players on 4 wins.

Click on images to enlarge
Report by Simon Hathrell, photos by Geoff Johnson