Colin Groves won the Woking A-Level series

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Colin Groves receiving the trophy from Sara Anderson

Well….our Midsummer tournaments are coming to an end…having done a two day Open and one day each for B, C and Advantage …today was the start of the two day GC A level Series and our last tournament of the week.

Having been at the club for around 12 hours each day today I slept through two alarms only to be woken up by Ian (hubby) to ask the time…..nearly died of shock to see it was 8.54 am. I have been at the Club at 8am everyday setting up ready for the start of each tournament….Today that was not the case……I got ready very speedily and arrived to a club house with all croquet players present……amazingly all our games managed to start at 9.30am (all on time)…even got the manager's chatty bit and warm up on lawns. This would not have been possible with out the great team of Andrew Dutton and Ian (hubby) who arrive to set up the hoops each day…..and who also set up printers that printed the prepared draw whilst I did chatty bit…big thanks.

Sunday will have a few more alarms set off….and Andrew jokingly said he will give me wake up call……l.

Day 2 ..Woke up nice and early and all ready for the players when they arrived.

Debbie Hayns who was the lowest ranked played her socks off ….even with Policeman's heel…(can't spell the medical version = plantar fasciitis) and had 5 wins finishing top of her block she won her best of 3 quarter final in 2 games and then was defeated by Martin Read who had first defeated Andy Jones, and who then went on to be the overall Runner up. Debbie came 3rd beating Michael Gentry in the 3rd & 4th playoff…..who incidentally beat Steve Hayns in quarter final.

Colin Groves had a shaky start to his quarter final loosing 0-7 in his first game but came back with a fight to take the next two games 7-4,7-4.

His semi final against Michael Gentry was also a 3 game match 7-5,4-7, 7-2.

And so to the Final against Martin Read…..yet again a mammoth 3 game match 7-6, 4-7, 7-3.

As well as winning the event Colin also qualifies for a Gold Merit Award .

The Plate had a very entertaining ending…. We had an 8 All Play all Block which ended up with Trevor J Smith and Steve Pearson both on exactly the same result….5 wins and 11+ net hoops each.
We had a Hoop Shoot out to decide the result …….for three rounds this remained equal so ended in sudden death…after two rounds of sudden death Steve Pearson emerged the victor.

A great couple of days of competition, weather and fun.