Schools and Juniors GC Championship

[<<] [>>] by Peter Death at Nottingham
16th July (GC - Tournaments)

The national Schools and Juniors tournament was held at Nottingham on 7 July.

Schools

Sadly, only two schools entered, Winchester and Chilwell. A third school failed to show up. This meant that the event was contested between the same two schools as last year. It was played as a best-of-three GC Doubles match, and Chilwell (Declan and Jack Martin) were successful, beating August Deeming and Oliver Jing 2-0. This reversed the result from 2023.

Juniors

This was played in 3 categories: Under 18, Under 13 and Under 11, again as GC matches.

The U18 entry consisted of the 4 players who had been involved in the Schools event. In an American block, Declan was unbeaten, with August as runner-up on 2 wins.

The U13(4 players) and U11 (7 players) groups, all Junior members at Nottingham, were played as a mixture of GC Doubles and GC Singles, to give everyone as much play as possible, and the winners were determined by the number of hoops scored. The U13 prize went to Tilly, with 21 hoops, followed by Charlie on 19. The U11 group was won by Lucy with 30 hoops, followed by Millie on 26.

The prizes were presented by Patricia Duke-Cox, President of Croquet England, who kindly took time out from playing in an Ac tournament also being played at Nottingham. She stressed how good it was to see the number of young people getting involved, and the support they had from family members.