Hamptworth November weekend

[<<] [>>] by Kevin Carter at Hamptworth
26-27 Nov 2005 (AC)

One of the many innovations of the new(ish) club of Hamptworth, between Southampton and Salisbury, is to run an advanced tournament during the last weekend of each of the winter months. Yes, it was cold, but the food and drink were good (it is attached to a golf club) and the company excellent.

The able manager, James Tuttiett, restricted play to 18 points in order to squeeze in seven rounds of the Egyptian over the two days, given that dusk was soon after 4pm. So, as soon as you ran hoop one the other clip was put on 3-back. This encouraged many attempts at quads, with several near misses but only one success, by the redoubtable 'Panther' in his final game.

The first day belonged to local farmer, Richard Dickson, but who fell by the wayside in the second. Others briefly flattered - David 'Black Boy' Nicholson, David Parkstone Nicholson and even yours truly, but a sustained finishing run of wins by James Tuttiett secured first place. James runs a local vineyard, which produces some excellent plonk under the 'Northbrook Springs' label. The winner's prize was a bottle of his best bubbly, which wasn't much good to its producer, so instead it was awarded to the runner-up, DN (Parkstone), and James bathed instead in a round of applause.

The most notable performance of the weekend was by Chris Crowcroft and Brian 'Wide Join' Fisk, who shared a place in the event, playing one day each. Between them - and largely blaming each other - they lost more Egyptian points then had ever before been seen in the history of this format.

Anybody wishing to play in future months should contact James, on vineyard#northbrooksprings.fsnet.co.uk.