Inter-Counties Championship 2000

[<<] [>>] by Sue Mackay
14th July 2000 (AC - Championships)

Essex triumphed in the Inter Counties Championship this year, pipping Gloucestershire to the post. They played at Compton on the first day and had an appalling start when they went down 3-0 to Cheshire, but thereafter they did not lose a match, conceding only single games to Dorset, Suffolk and Surrey. Admittedly they had world No.1 Robert Fulford in their team for three days (not a bad man to have in your third pairing!), and Chris Clarke played all four days, but captain Michael Heap was quick to point out that Robert and Chris inspired great performances from the other team members - Guy Willard, Paul Stephenson, Geoffrey Cuttle and Jim Potter.

On Monday Robert and Chris had a puncture and arrived half an hour late. Apparently their prowess at croquet is not matched by their ability to find the jack, and they arrived breathless and black handed to discover that their balls had long since been deemed on to the lawns in the crucial match against Gloucestershire. Such was the spirit in the Essex team, however, that Jim Potter (playing his first game) had conceded only 5 points and Guy Willard had conceded only 1 point against the Gloucestershire top pairing. Essex won 3-0 and the games were still the first to finish!

It was somewhat amazing that the championships even went ahead, let alone as smoothly as they did. Torrential rain on the Friday left huge puddles on the lawns, and a special vote of thanks must go to Jim Mortell, John Gosney and Don Mears for turning out in atrocious weather at Southwick to set the hoops and prepare the lawns. Conditions on the Saturday were cold and windy but mercifully dry, however, allowing play to get underway, but overnight storms saw Lawn 2 at Southwick completely submerged on Sunday. Morning games on this lawn were postponed until a lawn was free elsewhere, and the indefatigable Jim Mortell and an army of willing outplayers moved in with buckets and brooms to transfer the lake from the middle of Lawn 2 to the shrubbery. Meanwhile on the adjacent Lawn 1 Robert Fulford, playing with Geoffrey Cuttle against Avon, attempted a nontuple peel. He completed three peels before having to attempt an angled 1-back peel (before running 1-back) which jawsed; the break ended with a scatter shot which peeled 1-back, having made the escape ball safe. Geoff then ran 2-back, and Robert started a quad, peeling 3-back before failing to run 2-back. He subsequently finished with a triple, making eight peels in all.

In the second division it was the team from the Channel Islands who swept all before them. Rather a big channel, as captain Tony Le Moignan, Matt Burrow, Sarah Burrow and Paul Duckworth were joined by Ronan Rogerson of Ireland and Kevin Garrad of the Isle of Man - all members of the Jersey Club. They won nine matches, their only defeat coming on the last day at the hands of Devon, who were playing in their first Counties for over twenty years. The second division wooden spoon was won for the third time in four years by Hertfordshire, but this time they achieved two match wins.

Yorkshire were without their long standing captain David Coates, who sadly died last summer, but it was very nice to see his widow Wendy at the Championships, and she presented one of David's trophies to the best player from Yorkshire, Alain Giraud. Alain's play was unfortunately insufficient to keep Yorkshire in Division 1, as they only managed one match victory, at the expense of Cheshire. The other teams to be relegated were Northamptonshire (promoted last year) and Middlesex, who slumped from second to second last. Their places in the top division will be taken next year by Channel Islands, Northumberland and Lancashire. Spare a thought for Berkshire at this point. Last year they won the same number of games as Northamptonshire but lost promotion on the 'who beat whom' rule. This year they won four more games than Lancashire, but fell foul of the rule change which puts 'who beat whom' above games won.

The Counties would not be the Counties without its share of incidents. Phil Eardley of Suffolk did not endear himself to his captain when he walked off the lawn in a timed game thinking he had won when in fact he had miscounted the hoops and was actually behind, costing them the match. Norman Hicks of Northamptonshire shot at a green ball in Corner 2 of Lawn 4, sending it down on to Lawn 1. He then mistakenly retrieved Tony Le Moignan's white ball from Lawn 1 and played it into his game, only noticing that he had a five ball break when he had two whites together! Nottinghamshire had to field a late replacement when one of their number tried to climb a statue and broke his hand, and slightly more conventional injuries occurred on Lawn 6 on the last day when Garry McElwain tried to approach penult and his back went. His partner incapacitated, James Mackay of Glamorgan peeled penult from B baulk, but inadvertently caused further injury when a subsequent roquet shot into the hut and hit an outplayer from the double banked game with such force that the Barlow milling was imprinted on his kneecap!

Thanks are due to all the helpers at Southwick and Compton, especially the catering staff, and to Chris Williams for managing the event. Despite the weather it was a most enjoyable tournament.