Simon Turner wins the inaugural Mike Pattison Cup

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Tim Russell presents the Mike Pattison Cup to Simon Turner

Roehampton Club hosted the inaugural Mike Pattison Cup, donated in honour of our longest standing captain who sadly died in December. Mike was a keen Golf Croquet player and the Club's most passionate supporter at all club matches, home and away. The Cup forms part of the GC A level series.

The groundstaff produced immaculate lawns with a stimp reading of 12 which proved quite a challenge for the competitors on the first day who couldn't quite believe how softly they needed to hit their shots. We followed the Championship format with 4 blocks playing three best of three matches. Block D managed to take 4 hours over their first match, ensuring the manager had to impose time limits on their subsequent matches, but play still didn't end until 8pm.

Top seed Douglas Shand won all his matches to progress to the knockout from Block A alongside Ray Ore. Block B saw the two Roehampton members paired together with newcomer Alex Rose winning the block but Dan Pearson was overturned by Caroline Denny who took second spot. Block C saw John Gosden and Simon Turner progress. The marathon block D saw the biggest upset with bottom seed Michael Marcel topping the group and Bridget Goodman coming second. Richard Barkey threw his chance away with a poor approach to hoop 11 after time was called with the scores level against Margaret Page. Had he won the hoop he'd have finished top but he lost out on net games.

The second day saw two Ealing players progress to the final with Simon Turner beating Bridget Goodman 7-4, 7-3. Simon was on beautiful form with generally smooth hoop running and excellent positioning. He took a 4-0 lead in the first game including a beautiful clearance at 2 leaving his ball on the North boundary by 3. Bridget fought hard to come back into the game but Simon always appeared in control and then had the luck at the end when Bridget cleared him into the jaws of 10 for a half inch hoop. If only they were all like that!

Roehampton's Alex Rose finished third in his first tournament. A top snooker player at the club and he has taken to croquet like a duck to water. Scratch beckons. In the consolation events Ray Ore won the shield, Michael Gentry from Tunbridge Wells won the plate and Richard Barkey the saucer.

Good luck to Simon in the A series final. A worthy winner even if Mike Pattison would probably have preferred a Roehampton winner!