James Death won the Northern Championship

[<<] [>>] by Ian Lines at Bowdon
1st September (AC - Championships)

A full field of 16 gathered at Bowdon for the North of England Championship. It was probably the strongest entry for many years with all the players having a minus handicap, and 10 players having handicaps of -1.5 or lower.

The lawns, unlike last year, were generally easy, with recent rain leading to fully green lawns and fairly soft ground with forgiving hoops, even though set at about 1/32". Last year many games went to time in the challenging conditions, with the final having to be completed on an extra day - but this year all 75 games finished well within time - with many peeling turns being attempted.

In the first round, Alison Maugham played well to beat Ian Lines+26tp, -5, +26tp, with 6^th turn triples in both the first and third games. James Death had a qp and 3 sxps on the first day to beat Dave Kibble and Nigel Matthews without either of them even taking croquet. In the semi-finals, Debbie Lines put up more resistance to James, unfortunately breaking down on a tp in the first game, but completing a 6^th turn triple in the second. In the deciding third game, James made some remarkable croquet history by becoming the first person to complete a straight sextuple peel (ssxp) in a ranking game. Apparently he has done something similar before as part of an octuple, but this is the first time that an ssxp has been achieved. It seemed appropriate that Debbie had her first sxp against James in 2014, and now James had the first ssxp against Debbie.

In the final, James beat Robin Brown +13tpo, +26qp, +17sqp, with neither player making any errors of note, but James hit literally every shot and completed some excellent peeling turns to deservedly win the Faulkner Cup, finishing the best of 5 in under 3 hours, including some breaks.

The Tollemache Plate was contested as an 8 player knockout on Monday by the most successful players not in the main event final. The final of the plate was between Debbie Lines and Jack Good, who both attempted some very adventurous peeling turns, but in the end Jack's ability to hit consistently at over 20 yards, and his skill in playing some excellent croquet shots proved to be decisive in enabling him to win +7.

The club provided an endless stream of fantastic home-made cakes, and there was a well-attended tournament meal on the Sunday evening at the local Thai restaurant. The prizes were presented by Michael Sandler and James Death thanked all the volunteers and emphasised the vital importance of club volunteers in helping to make clubs such as Bowdon so successful. Particular thanks must also go to Charles Harding for his tireless work in steadily improving the lawns at Bowdon, and for preparing the courts for this event.

Full results are on CroquetScores at https://croquetscores.com/2026/ac/the-north-of-england-championship