Sidmouth sent a team of six to Nailsea for a midweek fixture against the home club in the first of this season’s Golf Croquet tournaments, writes Richard Thurlow.

As usual, the event consisted of four doubles and 16 singles games, The doubles were played first and, unusually, three were drawn, the fourth being won 6-4 by Nailsea against the Sidmouth pair of Graeme Pryor and Anne Reece.

Then followed the succession of 16 singles games when the Sidmouth team really excelled, winning 11, resulting in an overall twelve-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half success for Sidmouth.

All the players contributed to this convincing victory, especially Paul Bradley who drew his doubles game and won all his three singles..

Last week the club also hosted the annual ‘visiting medics’ event. The ‘medics’, a disparate group of medical doctors, gather for an annual reunion and play a bit of croquet and golf, in between less formal activities.

The day started off with medicinal honey vodka and sloe gin, and finished with medicinal honey vodka and sloe gin, some croquet being played in between! The club won we think.