Tyneside beat Sussex County at Nottingham to win the inaugural Golf Croquet Inter-Club Championship 6-1

[<<] [>>] by Bill Arliss at Nottingham
2nd October 2000 (GC - Inter-Club)

At Nottingham on Sunday 1st Oct, Tyneside met Sussex County in the final of this new competition. The format was identical to the Association Inter Club with six matches of singles and one doubles. Each match was played as the best of three, nineteen point games. The weather was kind but conditions were rather soggy from the previous day's rain and the worms had done their best to destroy the run of the ball with numerous casts.

Both Captains decided to put their strongest players at numbers 3 and 4 which resulted in some very close games. John Moore and Bill Arliss had a real cliff-hanger that lasted over 3 1/4 hours and finished on the
nineteenth hoop of the third game. At nine all in the third game, John managed to position his first ball about one foot in front of the hoop and gave Bill two chances with 30 yard shots to clear the ball. Regretfully two near misses were not sufficient. The match also proved a good warm up for the World Golf Croquet Championships in Cairo with three of the players, John, Bill and Ken, being amongst our nine players in the championship.

The strength in depth in the Tyneside team won the day and Tyneside finished as victors by a margin of 6-1.

The results were:

Gail Curry beat Ken Mason 10-8,10-2
John Moore beat Bill Arliss 10-7, 9-10, 10-9
Brian Kennedy & Colin McDonald beat Daphne Gaitley & Lilian Clay 10-5, 10-9
Bill Arliss beat Gail Curry 10-7, 10-5
John Moore beat Ken Mason 10-4, 10-9
Brian Kennedy beat Daphne Gaitley 10-5, 10-6
Colin McDonald beat Lilian Clay 10-5, 10-7