The South West Federation Golf Coquet League semi-final was played in Sidmouth on Saturday between Sidmouth SW team (seven players) and Abbey, Street (five players), Croquet Clubs.

The Sidmouth team had reached this stage by not losing a match and Abbey had won five out of their six matches.

Two Abbey players, a father and son, played off low handicaps of nought and two, another one was an eight, another a 10 and one had a very high handicap of the maximum 12! Sidmouth’s players were mostly in the mid-range five to nine with one player playing as a two. This led to a bit of an imbalance when deciding who plays whom.

After the first six games, four of which were doubles with two singles, Abbey was in the lead by three-and-a-half to two-and-a-half.

Four singles were then played before lunch bringing the score to Abbey five-and-a-half, Sidmouth four-and-a-half.

Sidmouth won three of the next four games, putting them into an overall lead.

Of the next four games Abbey won three to retake the lead by a single point at nine-and-a-half to eight-and-a-half.

The winner is the team win the most games out of the 20 being played. Two more games were to be played. If Sidmouth won both then they would go forward to the Final. The first game to finish was a win for Sidmouth bringing the score to nine-and-a-half all!

However, the final game was won by Abbey and they won the day by the narrowest of margins.

The closeness of the score reflected well both teams’ ability and they proved to be worthy semi-finalists.

Abbey’s best players on the day were David Moody (handicap 0) with three wins, a draw and two losses and Pamela Branley (8) with three wins and one loss.

Sidmouth’s best was Ann Ractliffe with a brace of wins and one draw. Other players had their moments however, Pamela Bowra (5) did very well to beat David Moody (0) and Anne Gedge (5) beat Paul Moody (2).

The Sidmouth team wished every success to the Abbey players who now play Weston Super Mare in the Final, to be held at Taunton in October