News 2023

Buzz Off Bees

A few unwanted visitors arrived on the lawns recently in the form of a swarm of bees that took up home in a treee alongside the lawns.    Fortunately, one of our members had a direct to her brother in lawn bee-keeper who came down, carefully removed the nest and found them a new home.

A little Club history follows bringing us up to date with today's 400th game.

Following our formation as a club in 1993, we first entered tournaments in 1997, losing 2-4 away to Watford in the Beds and Herts AC League in our first match. Since then, we've entered at least one inter-club tournament every year, and now typically enter four or five tournaments every year.

Our club competition wins are as follows:
4x Hector Shield (AC Beds & Herts League: 2000, 2003, 2012, 2015)
4x EACF GC Handicap League (2009, 2011, 2012, 2021)
4x EACF GC B-Level League (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022)
2x Chairman's Cup (AC EACF Playoff Winner: 2000, 2015)
1x Longman Cup (AC National Handicap: 2016)

The earliest line-up we can find is from Enfield's second match, a visit to Wrest Park in 1997, in which the team was Ian Davidson (9), Basil Lawrence (14), Joan Lawrence (24), and Wendy Spencer-Smith (24). Only Joan managed to score a point for Enfield, being one point ahead when time was called. Among the Wrest Park team were John Bevington and George Collin, who are still regular opponents for us!

The earliest match report we can find is from 1998, in which Wrest Park's newsletter reports: "A first visit to Enfield for all of us. John [Bevington] and Peter [Berry] arrived early enough to head into Enfield in search of breakfast and found a small cafe with excellent egg and bacon sandwiches. The two lawns are in a secluded corner of Bush Hill Park and have been converted from what used to be a putting green, so there are a few dips and slopes but nothing to worry about unduly. The lawns are surrounded by some fine shrubs which have been infested with a number of barbarous blackberry canes. A clean sweep was prevented by Basil, using his bisques intelligently against John, who had managed to get one ball round but then failed to hit in when it mattered." 

Much more information can be found here in the Club's History.

Michael Broadway Wins Club's Advantage GC Tournament

4th May 2023 - The last time we contested an Advantage GC tournament, bunting lined the streets for a major royal event, and Nicola Hyde faced Michael Broadway in the final. Eleven months later, how little has changed!

Twelve players contested the block stage, with the two low handicap players, Thomas and Kim, both struggling with the number of hoops needed for a win, winning one match between them. After five rounds of block play, Michael Broadway faced Mary Grove in one semifinal, winning 7-2, while Nicola Hyde played Gillian Porter in the other, winning 7-5. Nigel was unlucky to miss out on the semifinals with four wins from five in the block.

Michael was on song all day, dropping only a single hoop in a 6-7 block defeat to Gillian, and this continued into a 7-1 victory over Nicola, reversing the result from last year. Congratulations Michael!

Colin Carver and Jeanette Sexton played their first tournaments - thanks for entering! - and Michael earned a handicap reduction to 4.

The Season's First Win -Round 1 : The Murphy Shield 

Our first season’s Club win on Monday, 24th April with Enfield beating Watford at Cassiobury Park in this B level play match 4-3.   It was a very tight competition.   The best of three singles between Enfield’s Dave Hill and myself against Watford’s Eddie Chung and Steve Dennis all went to three matches culminating in a one-all draw.    The partnership of Brian Dawes and Kim Taylor in the doubles against Kevin Connolly and Alan Clark also went the whole way with Watford taking a one point lead.   Ultimately though, both Brian and Kim won their singles giving us that much needed two points to take us to round two when we shall be meeting Ealing. 

Congratulations to David Frost and Kim Taylor who took part in the GC A Level Series Tournament at Wrest Park (22nd-23rd April) with some great success.    Kim played some fine croquet and came second whilst David Frost also had a scorching weekend of play winning the Plate.    

APRIL 2023 - FREE INTRODUCTORY SESSIONS TO CROQUET

On Tuesday and Saturday mornings (starting 4th April and finishing 22nd April) we shall be hosting a series of 2-hourly sessions on the game of croquet.  You will be taught how to hold a mallet, hit the ball and the art of aiming the ball through a hoop.   You will also learn a little about the two versions of the game played at our club - Golf Croquet and Association Croquet.