Category: NWF Competitions

Bowdon Bounders GC Handicap team played against Westmorland amongst the flowers and hedges of Levens Hall, with the sun shining, and the sky a blue that reminded Margaret of her time living in Africa!

Bowdon won 15-3. The team was Margaret Moss – Captain (12), Alison Acton (12), Shiela Dix (12) and Mike Flannery (6). The Westmorland team was Rob Harvey (6), Mark Harnett (8), Fran Tidmarsh (9) and Colin Pritchard (11).

Alison Acton and Sheila Dix were making their debut for the team and celebrated by winning their doubles game. Alison and Margaret won all 4 of their singles games, and Sheila and Mike won three each.

Bowdon	Result	Westmorland	Score
Margaret & Mike	lost to	Rob & Mark	4-7
Alison & Sheila	beat	Fran & Colin	7-4

	Rob	Mark	Fran	Colin
Margaret	7-3	7-4	7-6	7-6
Alison	7-5	7-4	7-4	7-6
Sheila	7-5	3-7	7-4	7-3
Mike	7-2	5-7	7-4	7-3

On a very hot day, with plenty of sun cream being used, Bowdon hosted Chester in the NWF 26 pt handicap league. Adrian Apps was standing in as Captain as David Holland couldn’t play. The rest of the team were John Bagnall, Robert Cutts-Watson and Mike Flannery.

The Chester team was (ex Bowdon player) Elmyr Hughes (1), David Boyd (5), Robin Tasker (5) and Brian Walton (7).

The morning session went well for Bowdon; John and Robert beat Robin & Brian (16-8) in the doubles. In a close game, Adrian beat David (22-19) and Mike beat Elmer (26-2). A note of interest, in this match Mike scored all the hoops, peeling Elmer’s balls in error! So at lunch time Bowdon were 3 – 0 up.

After lunch there were four singles games, Adrain beat Elmer (26-3) and Robert beat Robin, (21-10) but Mike was beaten by David (15-17) and John lost to Brian (11-16) . However Bowdon had done enough to win 5 -2.

Bowdon		Chester
Robert & John	beat	Robin & Brian	16-8 (T)
Mike	beat	Elmyr	26-2
Adrian	beat	David	22-19 (T)
Adrian	beat	Elmyr	26-3
Mike	lost to	David	15-17 (T)
Robert	beat	Robin	21-10 (T)
John	lost to	Brian	11-16 (T)

Bowdon Angels team played Bury in the North West B Advanced league. Bury won the match 3 -2. The Angels team was; Charles Harding (Captain), Alan Mayne and Paul Harris. We haven’t got a picture of Paul yet.

Bury’s team was Paul Kenworthy (1), Roger Schofield (8) and Richard Leach (10).

Bury	Result	Bowdon	Score
Roger & Richard	lost to	Alan & Paul	13-16
Paul	beat	Charles	26-11
Paul	beat	Alan	26-17
Roger	lost to	Charles	0-26
Richard	beat	Paul	26-12

Why not pop along to the club at the end of May to see the popular June advanced weekend.

In addition on Saturday afternoon:

🌺🌷🌻🌹There will be a plant sale at the club on Saturday 31st May – bring your spare seedlings & buy others …….and come & watch some amazing advanced croquet 💐🥀🪷

What’s not to like Plants and Croquet!

The annual Festival of Croquet in Southport has become a highlight of the season in the North West.  It is arguably one of the biggest events in the croquet calendar.  We are still looking for a new Festival Manager to lead the team organising the 2025 Festival.  If you know anyone who may be interested, please ask them to consider the role.  The retiring manager, David Cornes, is happy to provide further details.

Ideally, we would like to have a new manager confirmed at the Autumn General Meeting.  If the position is still vacant at the Spring meeting, then there is a real risk that the event will not happen next year.

David has provided a brief synopsis of what’s involved:

“The skills needed are really just about co-ordination and ensuring all aspects of the Festival logistics are covered.  If you take the role on then the first job is reviewing feedback from 2024 evaluation responses and the planning notes from 2024 meetings.

Much of the work is undertaken by Southport, so as manager the first year is very much about learning the role “on the job” so gets easier in year 2 onwards. You do need half a dozen helpers for the smooth running of the Festival (i.e. one per playing format) but these can come from your own club and / or other clubs.”

As members know for croquet to continue needs volunteers to help run clubs, federation and Festivals. If you’ve enjoyed playing at the Festival in recent years and would like to get involved in ensuring it continues, you can talk to David about it. The papers referred to able can be made available too.

Many thanks

Mike Flannery

The match report below is provided by Margaret Moss and is much appreciated.

“Bowdon Bounders handicap golf croquet team enjoyed their visit to Craig y Don for their third international match of the year, and the first ever visit to the club by a Bowdon team. They played under the watchful eye of the Welsh dragon flag, while the seagull shared the lawns and ignored the players. The goats decided not to appear. Bowdon won the two doubles games, but Craig y Don won 10 of the 16 singles, making the score Craig y Don 10, Bowdon 8.”

Perhaps we need to have a HGC Doubles League in Croquet North West?

Our team is shown below, and thanks to Monica for agreeing to play at short notice:

The match scoresheet is shown below, as provided by Craig y Don.

Bowdon Bounders play at Craggy Dons in the Croquet North West League South Golf Croquet League on Tuesday 24th Sept. Currently the Bounders lie in 6th place in the league, but a win would take them up to 3rd.

The Bounders’ team is:

We wish them good luck and fine weather.

Bowdon Angels lost 1 – 4, against a Bury team that played very well indeed. On paper Bowdon should have won, with our total handicaps adding up to 6, compared with Bury’s 14. However, croquet does not always have favourites winning. The morning results saw Bury win the double and single games. In the afternoon the only win for the Angels was Brian Medley’s win over Ken Jones. Richard Leach, on the highest handicap, played extremely well in the morning doubles and the afternoon singles. He has not yet learned that 20 yard roquets, 20 yard angled rushes and 3 yard angled hoops are meant to be difficult. In the League, Bowdon Angels are left in third position, behind Crake Valley and the top team Chester. Bury are just below Bowdon Angels on net games score.

The Bowdon Angels’ team was:

Bury’s team was; Paul Kenworthy 1, Ken Jones 3 and Richard Leach 10

In the morning doubles Charles and John lost to Ken and Richard 9-22

In the morning singles Brian lost to Paul 13-26

In the afternoon:

Charles lost to Paul 13-26, John lost to Richard 6-26 and Brian beat Ken 26-4.

Bowdon Angels play their final match of the season against Bury in the Croquet North west B-Advanced League on Sunday 22nd September. Currently the Angels, with 6 points, lie in third place behind second placed Crake Lakes, who have played all their matches, and also have 6 points but a better net games score than the Angels. Topping the table is Chester who have played all their matches and have 8 points. So the Angels can catch Chester on 8 points, but Chester have the better net games score, 9 versus the Angels’ 6. This means that Bowdon need to win by 5-0 to win the league. If the Angels won by 4-1 then they would be equal with Chester on match points and game scores, so the result of their match against Chester would be the deciding factor and Chester won that so Chester would win the league.

A very big ask! But the Angels are putting out an experienced team of gnarly warriors, as below;

The Bowdon Bullets were locked in a 3-way tie at the top of the CNW Short league this season. They won this, their final, match 11 -5 against Chester to leap above Westmorland and claim second place. The match did not start well for the Bullets, when they lost 3 out of 4 games in the first round. They showed their battling qualities by winning 10 of the remaining 12 games. They finished second in the league to the Bowdon Blanks by the narrowest of margins. Both our Short teams ended the season with 12 points, and had to be separated by net games’ scores. The Bullets had a net games’ score of 71 -57 whilst the Blanks had 75-46 to be declared champions. Amazing success for both teams and their squads of Short players. You have done Bowdon CC proud!

The Bullets had a strong team, as below:

Chester’s team was; Helen Brophy 3, Sally Slater 4, Jayne Taylor 5 and Sarah Clements 7.

Cas beat Helen 14-2, Sarah 14-3 and Jayne 11-8, but lost to Sally 3-14

Liz beat Sarah 14-4, Sally 9-8 and Helen 7-6, but lost to Jayne 9-10

Charles beat Jayne 8-6, Helen 14-3 and Sally 14-9, but lost to Sarah 7-14

Garth beat Helen 7-6 and Jayne 10-9, but lost to Sally 6-14 and Sarah 6-14