Report on the 2002 Inter-County Championship

[<<] [>>] by Sue Mackay
9th June 2002 (AC - Championships)

Essex won the Inter Counties Cup for the second time in three years over the Jubilee Weekend at Southwick and Compton. Their team of Chris Clarke, Debbie Cornelius, Robert Fulford, Justin Goddard, Michael Heap (c), Paul Stephenson and Guy Willard achieved 8 match wins, losing only to Surrey and Gloucestershire. Last year's winners, Northumberland, were runners up with 7 match wins. Dorset, Sussex and Lancashire were relegated.

The second division was won by Hertfordshire, who didn't win a match in 1999 and won the wooden spoon again the following year. This year it looked as if their team of James Dixon, Duncan Hector, John Gibbons (c), David Lilly, Richard Smith and David Tutt would finish the tournament undefeated, but they were beaten 2-1 in the last match by their local rivals Bedfordshire. When collecting the shield John Gibbons paid tribute to Nigel Gray, the former Hertfordshire captain, who has been very ill but had been instrumental in putting the team back together - and who even lent John his mallet for the tournament!

Suffolk won the same number of games as Hertfordshire but they only had 8 match wins. Nevertheless they earned promotion to the first division next season, along with Glamorgan. The wooden spoon was won by Berkshire, who won 7 games but only one match.

The Channel Islands had been unable to raise a team this year, so Sarah and Matt Burrow formed the nucleus of a CA Select team to play in the second division. This meant that Avon, relegated last season, earned a reprieve. On the first day it seemed they were going to emulate Denmark, who won the European football championship when they were let into the competition at the last minute. Avon started with two 3-0 victories over Lancashire and Dorset, with 16-year-old Marcus Evans making his Counties debut and playing well.

Robert Fulford (Essex) attempted an octuple peel in his first game and succeeded in getting six of them, the first four straight. Reg Bamford (Middlesex) was playing at Compton for the first two days. I asked a member of the team if Reg had done many sextuples worthy of inclusion in the report and was told that Reg had broken down on a triple. "Now that IS news!"

Cliff Jones of Devon injured his shoulder two days before the tournament lifting a heavy bag of flour (obviously not self raising) and Devon were unable to find a replacement at short notice, so they were allowed to borrow a club player from Southwick and Compton, although the team would not be eligible for promotion. 14-year-old Craig Oakley from Compton thus had a chance to experience the unique atmosphere of the Counties for two days and played remarkably well.

On the second day groups of croquet players could be seen huddled round chairs and skulking in huts, despite the bright sunshine. It soon transpired that several players had come equipped with hand held televisions to watch the England-Sweden game in the World Cup. Tony Mrozinski (Surrey) broke down fortuitously at 1-back just as the game was about to start, leaving Don Gaunt (Gloucestershire) to do a TPO on George Noble's ball. Don, however, failed the rover peel and missed the scatter shot, forcing his opponents away from their TV just as England scored.

Glamorgan and Kent kept the players eating their lunch entertained at Compton on the final day. The game was late starting and was the last morning game to finish. As time was called, and only three balls on the lawn, Glamorgan pegged one ball out to go one ahead. Kent hit in across the lawn on the final shot and managed to make 4-back to level the scores. With both remaining balls for penult Kevin Ham and David Collins played a very exciting game of cat and mouse, but James Mackay's one ball tactics won through for Glamorgan in the end.

As usual the Counties was a wonderful festival of croquet and thanks must once again go to Chris Williams for managing the event and to all the members at Southwick and Compton who worked so hard preparing the lawns and providing the catering