Sidmouth sent two teams to Nailsea to play in the Somerset club’s ‘Short Croquet’ tournament, writes Richard Thurlow.

One team was in action on the Saturday in Division Four and the other team the following day in Division Two.

Short Croquet is a fairly recent version of the game, not as may be inferred, designed for those under five-feet-eight, but played on a half lawn, with a reduced time limit of one-hour and 15 minutes.

These modifications, together with a few minor rule changes, makes, it is thought, a brighter, more lively game, although with a 7am start and an 8pm finish, liveliness was not particularly evident on either day!

Each player plays four games against four other teams in their Division, scoring a point for a win, so the maximum points available is 16 in the day.

The Sidmouth Saturday team of Pam Bowra, Roger Hendy, John Coombes and Paul Griew, unfortunately did not liven up their games sufficiently, winning only three of their 16 games. Division Four will remain their home for a while.

The Sidmouth Sunday team of Richard Wood, Philip Harris, Jon ball and Richard Thurlow, promoted last year from Division Three, did well in the morning, but at lunch, had to win three out of four games in the afternoon to be top of their Division.

They managed to do so, scoring 12 points in the day, one ahead of the team from Bath who had 11 points.

As a consequence the team was promoted to Division One for the next tournament; we should probably retire now!