The annual short croquet tournament at Nailsea is very strongly contested.

Gaining popularity year by year, it now has five divisions to cope with 23 teams.

Thus, it was on a cold Sunday morning, Sidmouth Short Croquet team set off at 7.30am for their first tournament of the year at Nailsea Croquet Club.

This Association Croquet game is played of half size lawns ( ie the size of a tennis court) with a time limit of one-and-a-quarter-hours and both players usually having ‘bisques’ (bisques are the method of equalising different handicaps to give a fairer game. A bisque permits a full extra turn).

Why bisques? Hmm… answers on a post card please! We don’t know!

Very low handicap players get no bisques and have to peel balls, ie, play their partner ball through a hoop with their second ball.

Last year Sidmouth was relegated to Division Two with the standard of play ever-improving.

This year we played Camerton and Peasdown, Swindon and two Bath-based teams.

Richard Wood was the most successful member of the team who, despite having to do two peels in each game and he won three of his four games.

Ian Friedlander and Philip Harris each won two games with Julie Sorrell wining one game.

The team finished mid-table and retained their position in Division Two - ‘phew’.

The Sidmouth Herald was misinformed about the Sidmouth Club’s Charity Day winner.

The day was carried by Pam Bowra and not John Coombes. The Sidmouth Croquet Club pr rep has been suitably chastised.