West of Scotland Championship 2018

29-30 September 2018, Knightswood

Unlike the terrible weather throughout 2017 the Knightswood lawns were in much better condition and despite some intermittent showers remained medium-paced throughout the weekend.  The tournament was played using the Egyptian format with games lasting three hours.  With six players on the Saturday increasing to eight on Sunday it was possible for each player to complete three games on each day.

On the Saturday George Plant attempted a bisque-assisted triple against Alan Wilson which unfortunately came adrift at hoop 4 while attempting to regain position for the second peel.  Well done George for playing positively with bisques.  Two players were in contention for winning the event: James Thomson and Kevin Russell (Stefan Colling would have been added to this list if he had been able to play on both days).  Game 5 on Sunday was effectively a final with James beating Kevin in a closely fought match with the score 25-19T. 

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Spalding Trophy 2018

25-26 August, Knightswood

Eight pairs contested the Spalding trophy at Knightswood this year, teams largely consisting of one low handicap and one high handicap player.  Favourites, inasmuch as they had won the first two playings of the trophy and were the lowest of the low bisquers and the lowest of the high bisquers, were John Surgener and Bill Strachan.  However the manager had introduced a complication by giving all the other teams a small number of bisques.  He intended these to be used to allow promising breaks, particularly peeling ones, to continue after errors.  In the event quite a few were used to pick up breaks. The competition was as usual played as alternate stroke doubles to the laws of advanced play.

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Aberdeen Tournament 2018

8-9 September 2018, Albury and Westburn Centres

Hosted by Aberdeen and Crathes Croquet Club, 14 entered this year’s event with the regulars from the North of England and the Central Belt along with local players.  At the end of Saturday’s matches played in very pleasant sunshine, Block 1 was headed by George Plant,  Block 2 by Jola Jurasinska and Jamieson Walker was unbeaten in Block 3.  Sunday saw the Block 1:2 play offs with George winning through to the final and Malcolm Robertson qualifying for the Wine final for the second year running.  Jamieson continued his winning ways and qualified for the final before losing his last game to Robert Bell who then qualified for the Wine final as runner-up.

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