Phyllis Court’s Lilley and Mulcahy secure silverware at Corfu tournament

PHYLLIS Court’s contingent of eight players continued in the Greek Association Croquet Championships last week in Corfu where there was success for Rick Lilley and Patricia Mulcahy in events supporting the main 26-point handicap event.

Twenty-one players lined up for the singles event which took the form of a knockout, with repechage rounds allowing first-round losers a way back into the event.

Helen Essa and Lilley won their first-round games, versus Sara Anderson (Woking) +3T and Phyllis Court club-mate Kevin Ward +6T respectively, to qualify directly for round two but all the other Phyllis Court players lost and were grateful of the repechage second chance.

Chris Roberts beat Patricia Mulcahy +1, and Rob Eagle beat Frances Colman +11T in all-Phyllis Court repechage ties while Kevin Ward lost to John Crompton (York), taking Roberts and Eagle into round two.

Poor weather then robbed the tournament of a whole day’s play, and upon resumption, there was no time left for Essa and Eagle to play a proper part in the event before their pre-planned early departure and they withdrew.

In round two, Lilley got Phyllis Court’s own back on Crompton with an +8T victory and Roberts scored a +21 win over Ian Anderson (Woking).

Lilley lost out +4T in the quarter-finals to the experience of Liz Wilson (Fylde) while Roberts bided his time to eke out the bisques of Richard Quilter (Corfu) to win +9.

Roberts then played poorly in the semi and, despite much running around against the clock in the last
10 minutes, the three-time Greek Champion lost +3T to Wilson, who the following day lost the final by a single point to Alan Clark (High Wycombe).

In the 14-point handicap singles consolation event, Lilley came into contention late into proceedings due to his good run in the main event. Charles Harding (Bowdon) had set an early pace in this event but he floundered in later games, allowing Lilley to overhaul his winning percentage to end with a perfect five victories from five games for a 100 per cent score which was more than enough to win the event.

The managers found time in the schedule to provide the higher-ranked players with some level play advanced rules games and Chris Roberts flew the Phyllis Court flag in this one, but in the final analysis, he had not played enough games and David Warhurst (Budleigh) won the “crowing rights cockerel” trophy.

Although the Greek Open was an AC tournament, there was one day of a golf croquet (GC) event, and Phyllis Court chairman Patricia Mulcahy won the UK/Ireland prize with her impressive 5/6 winning tally in doubles games with ever changing Corfiot partners.