Three enthralling items for you this week, writes Richard Thurlow.

On June 14, the Budleigh Salterton Golf Croquet team played the Sidmouth SE team.

The visitors brought a team of four to play against Sidmouth’s seven, which meant that the Budleigh players each had to play six games; an arduous task in the warm and sunny weather.

Mention must be made of two Sidmouth players: Paul Bradley, who won three of his four games, and Margaret Piper, who won the three games she played.

After some very hard-fought games, Budleigh, always slightly ahead of Sidmouth, managed to win the match by one game, with the final score being Sidmouth SE nine-and-a-half, Budleigh Salterton ten-and-a-half.

Our Association Croquet members played in two internal tournaments, one on Saturday (June 16) for the Canton Cup and the other on Sunday (June 17) for the Owen Cup.

On Saturday, the weather was bleak and the number of entrants low, so low in fact that the Canton Cup was almost awarded to the first person who arrived, but the four who played had an enjoyable time we understand.

Each player won two of their three games, the winner being Richard Croft who, despite losing to Sue Dent in his game, ran more hoops than Sue in total and therefore emerged victorious.

The Owen Cup was played in similar conditions; rain, wind and no sun, and the eight players entered felt as if they had been transported back to April conditions.

Philip Harris, the tournament organiser, had arranged a parallel mini tournament to avoid complications of deciding the winner, should an equal number of matches be won.

Nobody understood this, but gamely took part!

The final was between Richard Thurlow and Graeme Pryor, the former losing narrowly to Graeme, who succeeded in ‘hitting in’ and making the final ‘golden’ hoop to take the individual honours.