Phyllis Court players gain national success

INDIVIDUAL successes outshone team performances last week for Phyllis Court Croquet Club with national tournament victories aplenty around the country.

Top achievers were club chairman Patricia Mulcahy and committee member Paul Franklin who won the handicap doubles event at the Association Croquet National Veterans Championship at Cheltenham.

They won two of their three block games on the first day and crucially had the head-to-head win over local pair Oldale and Brooksbank who had the same number of wins.

This was enough to qualify for the following morning’s final, where they beat the experienced former Cheltenham membership pair David and Eileen Magee 24-7 to win the Longman Trophy.

Mulcahy and Franklin went on to play in the handicap singles event and, although not reaching the later stages, impressed the tournament handicapper sufficiently to have their grades reduce from 11 to nine and 10 respectively.

For Mulcahy, there was a second recognition with the presentation of her AC bronze award for the milestone achievement at her previous Croquet England tournament where, in winning a game, she scored 10 hoops with bisques in a single break.

In golf croquet, Chris Roberts won 13 out of 14 games to win the Woking Open Series tournament with his only game loss coming in winning the final 2-1 against England AC International Jeff Dawson.

Together with a solid 2-0 win against Phyllis Court club-mate Ian Norris in the quarter-finals and another straight games win against England hopeful Tim Russell in the semis, it was a performance that earned Roberts his best ever ranking grade.

He is now at his highest position of 19th in the UK and 77th in the world and this victory also sees Roberts move to the top of the national open series points table.

Phyllis Court players also enjoyed successes last week at other national graded series competitions, with Dee McKibbin winning the Woking C-Level (7+) series tournament, losing only one game in the process.

She won all but one of her block games, with High Wycombe’s Ian Prince (already a winner of two C-Level titles this season) her only loss, and some big winning margins in other games saw McKibbin top her block on net hoops from the fancied Prince.

She beat Guildford’s Hilary Bird 7-5 in the semi-finals and would have expected a showdown with Prince in the final, but he lost to Woking player Nick Temple and McKibbin dispatched him instead 7-4.

The win qualified McKibbin to join Carol Huntington (who won at Roehampton) in a double presence for Phyllis Court in the C-Level National Final at Compton, Eastbourne in September.

There was also success for the Henley Club in the National D-Level (10+) Series, where Julia Green’s win capped a good day, not only for her but Phyllis Court too, as its players dominated the Ealing tournament both in number (five) and getting to the later stages.

Green came through her block in second place on the net hoops tie-breaker and was joined in the semi-finals by fellow members Philip Rowley and Daphne Spiers.

Green got the better of Rowley 7-3 in the all-Phyllis Court semi but Spiers couldn’t live with local man Tim Vernon and lost 7-1. However, Green was too good for him and won the final 7-5.

Rowley beat Spiers 7-3 in the third/fourth place match and fellow Phyllis Court Players Hilary Cowley and Dilys Gordon filled minor places.

Green’s win also earned her 10 points in the series points race that will decide the National Champion at D-Level and she sits tied with Rowley on 20 points at the top of the table.