Dave Maugham won the North of England Championship (and the Easterns)

[<<] [>>] by Ian Lines at Bowdon
28th August (AC - Championships)

A full field of 16 gathered at Bowdon for the North of England Championship. It was the strongest entry for many years with 12 minus players and 7 players with handicaps of -2 or lower. It was particularly good to see some entries from further afield, including Gavin Carter from Jersey and Aaron Westerby from New Zealand, on his 4^th visit to Bowdon over the last 30 years, but the first time he had played.

The lawns were relatively easy after all the rain in the north-west, but reasonably tight hoops provided a good challenge.

Unusually, there were some upsets for the 8 seeds on the first day. Simon Jenkins and Tudor Jenkins won their matches against Joel Taylor and Gavin Carter respectively, and David Maugham, Debbie Lines and Ian Lines all had to come back after losing their first games in best-of-threes to beat Paul Rigge, James Hawkins and Neil Adams respectively. The rest of the event had fewer upsets, and David Maugham and Aaron Westerby progressed to the final with relative ease. The final was closely fought, with just one or two errors by each, but perhaps David had the advantage over Aaron of having played hundreds of games at Bowdon over the years, and David ended up winning the Faulkner Cup +26tp, +15, +16tp.

The next best 8 competitors played a knockout for the Tollemache Plate, and in the final Dave Kibble beat Joel Taylor +16. Other games of note included a +26sxp by Gavin Carter against Mike Sandler and a +4otpt win for Gabrielle Higgins against Tudor Jenkins. The deciding of game of the final of the East of England Championship at Wrest Park between Debbie Lines and David Maugham was deemed to be the first game of their semi-final, which David won +11tp, so Mike Sandler was also able to present the trophies for two Regionals.

The players enjoyed reasonable weather and an excellent dinner on Saturday evening at the Griffin, and were kept well supplied with tea and cake throughout.

Full results are on CroquetScores at https://croquetscores.com/2024/ac/the-north-of-england-championship

Some photos are available at https://bowdoncroquet.co.uk/blog/2024/08/26/david-maugham-wins-north-of-england-championship-24th-26th-august/