Sidmouth Croquet Club ran its annual AC Handicap Doubles tournament, the Colclough and Sidmouth cups, writes Richard Thurlow.

This tournament is open to all AC players and good players with a low handicap, who are foolish enough to enter, are paired with a high handicap partner. This is supposed to give some semblance of equality.

Sixteen players entered, resulting in eight pairs, who were put into two blocks of four. Thus, each pair played three games in their block , and the winning pair of each block played for the title.

The weather was hot, the lawns parched, as were the players after about half an hour. Fortunately, the bar was open and several entrants were able to quench their thirsts at lunch time, after one of the rounds, (Ian Friedlander’s shots always improve after a lunch time quenching).

At the end of the afternoon, block A leaders were Richard Thurlow and Jeanette Pollock, with two wins. The block B leadership was shared with two wins apiece for the pairings of Brian Pollock and Julie Sorrell and Ian Friedlander and Julie Horsley,

On Saturday, in Block A, the Richard Thurlow, Jeanette Pollock combination could not maintain their previous day’s success and lost to Philip Harris and Rob Bayliss while, across in Block B, there was a third win for the Friedlander and Horlsey combination.

The final standings were determined on countback which led to Philip Harris and Rob Bayliss have a better overall score than Richard Thurlow, Jeanette Pollock in terms of block A and, in the final, Harris and Bayliss edged another close encounter with Friedlander and Horsley to end up as the triumphant winners.