Nottingham lost to Sheffield 2-3

The fixture was unusually complicated to arrange between neighbouring clubs merely 40 miles apart, due to Sheffield needing to play away as a single lawn club, and Nottingham's busy tournament schedule occupying most weekends across June and early July. After new grey hairs and many phone calls/emails, two teams of 3 reached the start line on the hottest recorded day of 2023 to date.

Nottingham made a promising start with newly-crowned Peel Memorial female singles champion Sarah Butler utilising her bisques to good effect against Sheffield's own 'fastest accountant' Trevor Billard. The doubles took awhile to ignite, with both sides making early errors. Both matches eventually went to Sheffield, who were delighted to reach the lunch break 2-0 up.

A post-lunch comeback from Nottingham saw captain Martin Beacon land his team's first point against Eugene Chang. Peggy Deller reached rover and rover before Trevor (on 1 and 2) nearly turned the tables, sticking in rover with his backward ball having peeled and pegged out one of Peggy's balls earlier. Peggy hit the ball in rover from next to hoop 6 and finished to level the fixture 2-2.

The deciding match saw Sheffield's (Forest of) Dean Morton establish a comfortable lead against Sarah who was conceding bisques for the first time. Despite a spirited comeback, Dean held on to send Sheffield through to the semi-finals.

Dean's handicap was adjusted from 20 to 14 after a recent series of successive wins impressed the CA handicapper present.

Martin Beacon (3.5) & Peggy Deller (18) lost to Eugene Chang (-1.5) & Dean Morton (20) -21