Report by Peter Allan
The SCF AC Champion of Champions 2018 tournament took place on 30th March 2019 at Hamptworth Croquet Club. The 14 players had either won their internal AC competition, or it had been agreed that they would represent their club. (Perhaps they had come second and the winner was not available). Harwell did not complete the Founders’ Cup in 2018, but the final will be between Tom Griffin and myself. Tom and I agreed that I should be the one to take part in the tournament. This turned out to be a good decision, since I won the tournament! The main tournament was a knock-out, with the losers of the semi-finals playing for 3rd place and others going into a Swiss competition. Each game was 14 points / 1.5 hours.
I won the first three rounds with steady play against players of similar handicaps. They were 10, 18 and 18; I am 16.) The final was against Roger Barnacle who is handicap 3. I felt quite confident since my game plan against low handicappers stood me in good stead last year. I took my first ball round 6 hoops before Roger got going. Then he scored 3 hoops. I decided to use some bisques to set up a 4-ball break and all was going well until I ran black through hoop 1, only to discover as I bent over to pick up the clip that black was the ball I had already taken round to peg. Disaster! I had not done anything illegal, but I had wasted the opportunity and some bisques. I was 6-3 ahead against a 3 handicapper with only one bisque left. Things did not look promising. However, by careful defensive play, I won 8-6. The moral being – don’t panic. Harwell holds the trophy for this year.