Tim Russell won the GC Veterans Championship

[<<] [>>] by John Low at Sussex County
26th August (GC - Championships)

The 2026 GC Veterans Championship was won by top seed Tim Russell, who beat second seed Lionel Tibble 7-4, 7-5. This is the third time Tim has won the event in the last four years, two of those at Sussex where the competition has now come to the end of its three-year cycle.

Following the usual programme for this event, the 24 players were arranged into two blocks, each playing 11 single games over the first day and second morning, followed by a knockout and plate stage.

Weather conditions at Southwick were fine, if a little on the hot side. The lawns were fast, dry and challenging; a watering system fault had occurred 3 days before and over the weekend and that, coupled with the exceptionally dry weather and light winds left the lawns rather less controllable than Sussex's superb groundsman Ben would have liked. The combination of hard ground and very firm Quadway hoops punished the slightest error in hoop running and many games were extended as good clearances and positioning were followed by failed hoops.

The format used by this competition since its inception means 11 block games over a day and a half. Quite challenging as nearly half the players were over 75. The first day ended with Steve Leonard and Andy Dochniak both unbeaten with 7/7 wins each surprisingly Tim and Lionel winning 5/7 games, Tim losing to Nelson Morrow and Steve Leonard, and Lionel losing to Rick Lilley and Andy Dochniak.

After the blocks were finished the following day, Steve and Andy topped their respective blocks, Andy with 10 wins from 11 and Steve with 9 wins from 11 they were accompanied into the knockout stages by Tim, Lionel, Andy Loakes, Stephen Custance-Baker, David Wise and Colin Britt (ranked 11 and 12) taking the last two places.

Among the players over 75, only Stephen Custance-Baker survived into the Semi-Final stage, and he was awarded the Richard Brooks Vase for the Best Performing Player in the age group. Andy Dochniak won the 3rd-4th place play-off. The Shield was won by Andy Loakes.

12 of the 16 possible players entered the Plate event which had a trophy this year, thanks to Croquet England who agreed to provide a freshly engraved new plate for this and future events. After some discussion with the players, the Manager ran it in a cross-block format as originally intended, with all participants playing opponents they had not yet met in the competition.

Many games were very long - not because of slow play (though there was some of that) but because every hoop was hard fought: lots of long clearances followed by defeat at the hands of unforgiving hoops. With hindsight it would probably have been wise to put a time limit on the plate matches, as this would have shortened the length of play on the second day and spared players long waits between games.

The Plate was won by Luis de Alarcon (Spain) who quietly won 5 out of 6 games, the best performance in the event. Luis said he had not played with Quadway hoops before and that clearly affected his performance on the crucial first day of the competition. Sadly, he was only able to go home with a photo of the award, rather than the Plate itself, as Croquet England doesn't allow its trophies to travel abroad!

In his speech at the award, winner Tim Russell thanked the groundsman and catering teams for the excellent work making the tournament a great success.

On a personal note, it has been a pleasure managing the GC Veterans Championship at Sussex for the last three years. Tough, competitive play, but always in a good-natured and friendly way. The event is now off to Surbiton.