| THE BOWDON
BLOG & ROLL OF HONOUR 2007 |
| January/April May
June July
August September
October/December Roll of Honour |
| JANUARY to APRIL |
|
The year started
with Ian
Lines off to New Zealand where he was runner-up (to Chris Clarke) in
the South Island
Championship and reached the quarter-finals of the New Zealand Open in both the
singles and doubles.
In February Andrew Winn did even better in his travels by going to Johannesburg and winning the Culligan and Cherryl Coulson trophies. Andrew obviously likes the lawns in South Africa finishing up with a 10/10 record. 
Andrew Winn and the Culligan Trophy Meanwhile, back home improvements were being made, with the help of the Chester contingent , to the path up to the equipment shed in time for the new shed arriving.   Barry Keen (with help from Chris & Colin Irwin and Ian Lines) ran a successful laws course in March. The season started on 1st April with Ian Lines winning the Neil Williams Trophy , for the second year running, at Heaton Park. Ray Lowe of Southport won the 'B' event.  Ian Lines receives the Neil Williams Trophy from Barry Keen. The first Wednesday Competition of the season was Janice Moir (83 pts) beating Mike Steer (80) and Richard Griffiths (70). Other Wednesday winners in April were Ros Pimlott (twice) and John Wilkinson. The traditional social start to the season, the Hot Pot Supper , was held on 15th April and, as usual, was a resounding success.  And on the following day St. Mary's beat Firs 4-2 in their NW Handicap League match. Later in April St. Mary's lost 4-2 at home to a strong Crake Valley team. John Saxby's Griffins lost their first league match, 4-2 at home, against Bury. The Short Lawn team lost their first league game at Pendle & Craven whilst the much-awaited local derby in the NW Advanced League saw Bowdon Canons thrash Bowdon Saints 6-0. On the individual front David Maugham beat Richard White (Nottingham) 2-1 to win the Jubilee Tankard at Southport with Ian Lines winning the plate event, beating Dave Nick (Crake Valley) in a one-ball final. |
| MAY |
|
The month of May
started with the Handicap Weekend
, which, as normal, was excellently managed by Lorna Frost.
All four
semi-finalists were from Bowdon - Messrs. Holland, Saxby, Steer and
Wilkinson. David Holland won a close encounter of the high-handicappers
+5t against John Saxby whilst Mike had a good +10 win over Wilko. In
the final David Holland used his bisques well to beat Mike +26.
 David Holland in the final In the
Wednesday competition there were wins for Ken Cooper, Keith James,
Steve Lewis, Janice Moir and John Saxby (the first of 5 wins to come
in the season). By the end of May Alan Mayne was top of the league,
Janice in second and John Saxby third.
An all-Bowdon final in the Westerns at Parkstone saw Keith Aiton beating David Maugham whilst on the same weekend at Cheltenham Ian Lines was runner-up in the Coles and winner of the Plate. It was mainly a good month as far as team results were concerned. In the NW Federation Handicap league Firs drew with Chester and St. Mary's had a good win against Bury Peelers . Wins also for the Short team (10-6 against Chester) and Griffins against Fylde . The Mary Rose team took their first step of a good run by beating Bury but there was a resounding defeat for the Longman Cup squad, 6-1 against Ashby . As usual, the Cheshire side taking part in the Inter-Counties at the end of the month was made up mainly of Bowdon players, finishing a close second to Nottinghamshire.  The Cheshire team |
June started with the Bowdon Advanced Competition
which was won for the eighth time by David Maugham, coming from 2-0
down to beat Colin Irwin -17tp, -20, +26tp, +17tp, +10tpo. Ian Lines
won the Plate.  The June Advanced
Tournament
In the Wednesday Comp. there were wins for Richard Griffiths, John Lucas, John Saxby and a joint win for the Lewis's (Steve and Chris). June was a good month for individual achievements with Mike Steer and Dennis Graham winning 'B' Class tournaments at Sidmouth and Bristol respectively, Alan Linton winning the doubles at Parkstone with partner Charles Askew and Andrew Winn , not only winning the Edgbaston 'B', but doing it in style with his first ever competitive triple-peel in the final. Other noteworthy June exploits included Martin Granger Brown winning an 'endurance' award after being runner-up in three events in the National Vetrams Championship at Southwick, Richard Griffiths captaining the CA against CA Ireland and 10 year old Adam Swinton winning the first Swinging Sunday of the season. In team matches the Griffins lost to Pendle (4-2) , Bury (6-0) and beat Chester (5-1) in the Midweek League. The Short team beat Fylde and Southport . Canons drew 3-3 with Pendle in the Advanced League whilst Firs had a good draw at Crake and St. Mary's went down 5-1 at Bury Caesars in the Handicap. The Beginners' Course , ably led by Ken Cooper, finished in mid-June with the promise of several new members.  The Home Internationals took place with David Maugham, Ian Lines and Ailsa Lines in the winning England team and Keith Aiton playing for Scotland. Socially the big event was the BBQ , superbly cooked, as always, by Colin Irwin.  |
| JULY |
|
Outstanding
achievement of July was the club winning the NW Federation
Team Championship at Southport. Led by captain Mike Steer, his team
of Sylvia Steer, Frank & Janice Moir, Ros & Ken Pimlott, Jane
Wilkinson, Janet Guthrie, Jean Teare, Francois Garcia and Alan Mayne
took the trophy by winning both the Golf and Short competitions.
Bowdon's own version of the Counties was won by Yorkshire fielding a high handicap team of John Larmouth, David Tunbridge, Cecil Davies and Ian Bell.  Ian Bell, David Tunbridge and John Larmouth of Yorkshire The only two Wednesday Comps. of the month were won by Alan Mayne and Cecil Davies. A good month for Bowdon teams with only one defeat between them in ten matches. In the knockouts the Mary Rose team reached the semi-final by beating Colchester 4-3 whilst the Inter-Club team did the same, beating Cheltenham at home by the same score. In the NW leagues the Short team drew with Llanfairfechan , the Griffins drew with Pendle , there were wins in the Advanced league for Canons ( Bury and Crake Valley ) and Saints (at Crake Valley ). In the Handicap league Firs drew with Southport Vics whilst St. Mary's beat Southport Vics but were the only defeated team in the month going down to Pendle at home. David Walters played for Wales in winning the European Team Championships at Cheltenham. Liz Webb won the Cheltenham Mid-week Tournament's Egyptian competition. Colin Irwin won the German Open for the 4th time and David Maugham won the Easterns at Colchester beating Robert Fulford 3-0 in the final. 
Colin Irwin - German Open Champion The big CA event of the month at Bowdon was the Northerns with Ailsa Lines winning the singles, advanced doubles (with Richard Griffiths) and handicap doubles (with John Saxby).  Ailsa Lines |
David Maugham started
the month of August by going to Tyneside and winning their Open event,
performing 6 sextuple peels in doing so. Ian Lines was runner-up at Bristol
(to David Goacher) and Andrew Winn won the Southport 'B' . Ian
Lines also won the
Musk Cup , one of Golf croquet's big events of the season.
IIan Lines is
presented with the Musk Cup
Francois Garcia won
Wild Wednesday and there were also Wednesday wins for Ken Cooper,
John Saxby/Keith James, Ros Pimlott and John Lucas.
 Francois receives the Wild Wednesday trophy There were three
wins out
of eight for the Bowdon teams (all 4-2), St. Mary's against Fylde , Firs against Pendle (both at home in
the Handicap League), and Saints away to Pendle in the
Advanced. The five defeats were: Griffins losing 1-5 at Fylde and 0-6 at Chester in
the Midweek league, Firs losing 1-5 at Bury Caesars
and Canons losing 2-4 in the Advanced league at Southport but
still earning enough bonus points to finish as league champions. The
other match played was Firs at
Bury Peelers which finished 3-3.
The big event of the month at Bowdon was the North of England Championships which had one of the strongest ever Association Croquet fields to play here. The world's top 5 players and 8 out of the top 18 entered. After four days of wonderful croquet Reg Bamford came out the winner beating Rutger Beijederewellen in the final.  Reg Bamford in action
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At the start of
September the All
England Area
Handicap was held at Pendle. Bowdon was well represented by Jenny
Dennis, Janet Guthrie, Sue Cooper, Francois Garcia and Christine Irwin.
 This was followed by Eights Week , a collection of invitational tournaments played across the country. Bowdon were represented in four of the competitions. A joint win (with Frank Moir) and an outright win in the Wednesday Comp . for John Saxby, by now looking uncatchable at the top of the leader board. Other September winners were Alan Mayne and Paul Widger. The big disappointment as far as team matches were concerned was the Mary Rose team's defeat at home to Pendle in the semi-final.  No such problems for the Inter-Club lads though who easily beat Hurlingham 6-1 to reach the final. The Short team finished off their season with a good 10-6 win at Bury but it wasn't enough to take the title away from Bury by the slimmest of margins. The Saints finished with two home games, beating Southport but lost 1-5 to Bury giving them runners-up spot (to Canons). A defeat each for St. Mary's (Chester away) and Firs (Fylde away) leaving them in 6th and 7th spots. On the individual front Ian Lines won the Southport Advanced , Dennis Graham won the Southerns 'B' level competition, Barry McKenzie won the Bowdon Novices Tournament  Barry McKenzie receives the Fotiadi Bowl and Mike Sandler became the first recipient of the Black Shield for winning the first ever Bowdon 'B' Tournament.  Mike Sandler receives the Black Shield from John Saxby |
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Another big disappointment for Bowdon occurred in October when the Inter-Club team were well beaten 6-1 by Bristol in the Inter-Club final.  The Bowdon Inter-Club Team John Saxby won the Wednesday Competition seasonal award with 2006 champion Steve Lewis runner-up and Ken Cooper in third place. Ken and Francois Garcia were the winners of the two Wednesday Comps in October.  John Saxby receives his trophy We said good-bye to Richard Griffiths who moved to Cornwall.  Ken Cooper won the club's first one-ball handicap tournament and Ian Lines finished off his season by finishing ninth in the Australian Open .  The club's year came to its usual close with the AGM and Dinner at Franc's restaurant. |
