[<<] [>>] by Martin Burger at Surbiton
7-8 Oct 2006 (AC)

After the floods of the previous week had receded, the dove arrived with its olive leaf and the ARK found itself on dry land, with pleasant weather throughout. But we had an odd number. Instead of using lots of little bits of paper for the Egyptian , I tried a peg board for pairing and lawn allocation combined with a master score sheet, which at least avoided the usual flurry of the little bits of paper when the fire door is opened.

Play was quite interesting with some notable achievements mixed with very silly ones. The latter shall go unrecorded, but the former included a straight triple by Paul Watson against John McMordie, who himself recorded his first tournament triple against Dick Knapp thus getting his Gold Award (a few years after Dick). (Incidentally this won't show up in the TP stats on the rankings because it is not level play.

After the first day Paul Watson had 4 wins from 4 (including the STP) and Rodney Parkins and Chris Daniels 3 from 3. Paul then beat Rodney and Tony Fathers beat Chris. At this stage Paul was well in the lead but then Tony beat him so now everyone had lost at least one game. Because of the free format, players were becoming available at different times to pair up, but by 4:30 the critical 2 games were in progress. Chris Farthing had crept up and though not in contention for first place had enough points to provide a challenge for his opponent Paul, who would win overall if he beat Chris. If Paul lost, the winner of Tony Fathers and Martin Burger would win. Paul was progressing well until hampered after penult leaving Chris the ball together needing a triple. Having rushed an opponent ball solidly onto the 2-back wire before 3-back this proved quite interesting but the way he coped showed why, at -2 he was the lowest handicap in the field so +3TP to Chris.

Martin reached peg and peg with a straight rush lined up when Tony hit partner from near 20-yards and kept the innings, so +2 to Tony and a well-deserved tournament win.

Thanks are due to Alec Thomas for Saturday lunch and George Noble for Sunday lunch and a lot of help with the courts.

Results

1) Tony Fathers
2) Chris Daniels
3) Chris Farthing

Handicap Changes

Alan Edwards (AG) 10 to 9
Les Hensman (LW) 11 to 12
Brian Rees (BG) 4 to 4.5
Peter Quinn (PG) 1.5 to 2

CA Merit Awards

Gold: John McMordie
Bronze: Alan Edwards