Roger Staples won the Tyneside Midweek Handicap Tournament
[<<] [>>] by David Appleton
at Tyneside Croquet Club
5 Jun
2014 (AC - Handicap)
Eight players contested an American block this year: seven regulars from Tyneside, Belsay Hall, Middlesbrough, and Phyllis Court were joined by new entrant Ian Hall from Keswick, impressively playing off 8 bisques in his first competitive year and winning more games than he lost. The winner was Roger Staples who had to beat fellow Middlesbrough member Nigel Roberts by more than two hoops in the last round to repeat last year's victory. Because of work taking place in Exhibition Park it had proved impossible to cut the lawns as often as usual and they were slower than ideal especially when it rained, though the competitors made the best of things, being kept in a good humour by Sheila Watts' coronation chicken and corned-beef bake, among other delights. The slowness of the lawns was largely responsible for eight of the twenty-eight matches going to time, though half of them involved one player who might consider what that means about his speed and style of play.