Phyllis Court beat Nottingham 4-3

[<<] [>>] by Christopher Roberts at Phyllis Court
5 Jun (GC - Inter-Club)

Phyllis Court 4 -3 Nottingham

Phyllis Court beat Nottingham in the National Inter-Club Championship (Tier 1) for the first time in five attempts today.
On a wet, cold and lousy day weatherwise, the Phyllis Court team shone brightly!

Rick Lilley was the star performer for the home team, winning both his singles matches 2-0 and with Ian Norris and Andy Jones winning once each, Phyllis Court secured an historic victory.

Nottingham had come to Phyllis Court three times before, including for two national finals, and ever present Ian and Euan Burridge have previously been joined by other international players, ensuring little joy for for the host club.

This time the visitors promoted Paul Pinnock from their tier 2 Inter-Club Shield team and also looked to the reliable former Ireland player Ian Vincent, whilst Phyllis Court had to do without Ireland international Charlie von Schmieder who ad work commitments, but were otherwise at full strength.

Nottingham's Vincent did well to contain the improving Andy Jones to win their morning match 2-0, and the host's Lilley dispatched Pinnock in straight games too, for one singles match to each side.

Although the Burridge's were made to work for their win in the doubles match by Chris Roberts and Ian Norris, that too was over in two games and Nottingham took a familiar 2-1 team match lead into lunch.

Euan Burridge smashed Roberts to all points of the compass once 4-3 ahead in their first afternoon game and Roberts scored only one hoop point there after, going down 3-7, 1-7, to leave his team needing to win all of the reamaining three afternoon matches.

Phyllis Court's Lilley romped to easy and the a very close win over Vincent 7-1, 7-6, before team mate Norris scored the 'result of the day', in scalping Ian Burridge 7-4, 4-7, 7-6 and all eyes fell on the slow encounter between the home side's Jones and visitor Pinnock, which still had some way to go in their second game.

Jones had won the first 7-5 and interest focussed on that second game at 4-4 with the team match in the balance.

Eventually Jones scored the next three hoops and the unlikely comeback victory was secured for Phyllis Court who won the team match 4-3 to progress to the national semi-final for the first time in years.

Phyllis Court now await the winners of the Bowdon v Hurlingham quarter-final.

Phyllis Court - Chris Roberts (-2), Ian Norris (0), Rick Lilley (0), Andy Jones (2).
Nottingham - Euan Burridge (-3), Ian Burridge (-2), Ian Vincent (0), Paul Pinnock (3)

Review a digest of the results on Croquet Scores with this link - croquetscores.com/2025/gc/england-inter-club-championship-tier-1-phyllis-court-v-nottingham