Phyllis Court deal knockout blow to national champions to secure semi-final spot

PHYLLIS Court A reached the semi-finals of the National Inter-Club Championship (tier 1) last week, when they beat Nottingham 4-3, for the first time in five attempts.

Visitors Nottingham were the current holders and had been champion club four times in the last seven years, but Rick Lilley was the star performer for Phyllis Court, winning both his singles matches 2-0 and Ian Norris and Andy Jones winning once each, as the hosts secured an historic victory.

Nottingham had come to Phyllis Court three times before, including for two national finals, and ever-present Ian and Euan Burridge had previously been joined by other international players, ensuring little joy for the host club.

This time the visitors promoted Paul Pinnock from their tier 2 Inter-Club Shield team and also looked to the reliable former Ireland player Ian Vincent, while Phyllis Court had to do without their Ireland international Charlie von Schmieder who had work commitments, but were otherwise at full strength.

Nottingham’s Vincent did well to contain the improving Jones to win their morning match 2-0 but the hosts’ Lilley dispatched Pinnock in the same fashion, and although the Burridges were made to work for their win in the doubles match by Chris Roberts and Ian Norris, that too was over in two games and Nottingham took a familiar 2-1 team match lead into lunch.

Young England star Euan Burridge smashed Welsh international Roberts to all points of the compass once 4-3 ahead in their first afternoon game and Roberts scored only one hoop point thereafter, and went down 7-3, 7-1 to leave his team needing to win all of the reaming three afternoon matches.

Lilley romped to easy, and then very close, wins over Vincent 7-1, 7-6, before team-mate Norris scored the result of the day, in scalping Wales captain Ian Burridge 7-4, 4-7, 7-6 and all eyes fell on the slow encounter between the home side’s Jones and visitor Pinnock, which still had some way to go in their second game.

Jones had won the first 7-5 and interest focused on that second game at 4-4 with the team match in the balance.

Eventually Jones scored the next three hoops and the unlikely comeback victory was secured for Phyllis Court who won the team match 4-3 to progress to the national semi-final for the first time in six years.

Phyllis Court now await the winners of the quarter-final between top Northern side Bowdon versus the Hurlingham club from Putney.

On the individual competitive front Phyllis Court’s Chris Roberts went agonisingly close to a first Southern Croquet Federation Championship title on home turf last week, but in the end lost out to High Wycombe’s Ian Shore by the slim margin of two hoops.

There was good play at this tournament that brought together the eight best ranked players in the Southern Federation area — Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Hampshire.

A good field that already included other Phyllis Court players, Charlie von Schmieder and Ian Norris, was further enhanced by Helena Fensome’s arrival as a late replacement.

Shore was the only undefeated player at lunch and soon after he got to four wins out of four, before being stopped in his tracks by Roberts, who had started poorly losing his first two games, both 7-6, but then bounced back to win five in a row, including against all the other Phyllis Court players and leader Shore.

The tournament hung on the last game to finish with Roberts hoping for a slip from Shore to create a tie on five wins each, causing the title to rest on net hoops.

Jonathan Smith of Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, played his part and won that last game but the final net hoops count favoured Shore over Roberts, +17 to +15.