AC Club Champions Day

Unfortunately, the day's play got off to a frantic start as Nick Archer unfortunately had gone down with an ailment that required a visit to the hospital, and although discharged was understandably resting at home. Simon Hathrell who was acting as the club host and later to take care of the catering and other refreshments agreed to play as a non-counting wild card until mid-afternoon.

However, play although a little delayed got under way on the Watford lawns that were in very good playing conditions, and despite an adverse weather report the day proved to be rather pleasant and which ended in a pleasant spring evening.

Group 1 (Advanced): Although reduced to only three players the overall play was of a high standard as expected, starting with a +22tp by David Marsh over Alison Maugham. This was followed by Nick Steiner winning +3 over Alison, leading to a block play-off between Nick and David. However, in the final game Nick raised his game and put in a fine performance to overcome David, running out the block winner with +17 win.

Group 2 (B-Level Advanced): This proved to be a very competitive block with a large proportion of the games, although finishing in time ran very close to the time limit set at 2½ hours. Jeff Farrington representing the Colchester Club dominated, winning all his 3 games, although he had a bit of a struggle against home club member Geoff Johnson who managed to lose only -2T to finish second in the group.

Group 3 (Handicap): Despite being reduced to 18-point games this proved to be a very close block that ran to the wire, ending with Stuart Stafford (Wrest Park) on 2 wins playing home member David Robinson. Stuart had to win his final game to run out the overall winner; if he failed this would give the manager a bit of a problem in that he would have a possible 2 game block tie between 4 players. Unbelievably, it looked as time had expired that the score was in David’s favour 25 – 24, and having pegged out one ball he looked as he was home and dry. But the fat lady had yet to finish singing and Stuart carried off an unbelievable peg out to run out the overall block winner.

Many thanks to the Watford Club for making their lawns available, and it should be noted that despite all games being reduced to 2½ hours remarkably few went to time.

Click on images to enlarge

Report by Terrey Sparks

Level Advanced'A' Block

Player	Club	H'cap	NS	DM	AM	NA	Wins	Rank
Nick Steiner	Colchester	-½		+17	+3	-	2	1
David Marsh	Wrest Park	-1	-17		+22tp	-	1	2
Alison Maugham	Letchworth	-1½	-3	-22tp		-	0	3
Nick Archer	Watford	1½	-	-	-		-	-

Level Advanced'B' Block

Player	Club	H'cap	JF	GJ	JT	DW	Wins	Rank
Jeff Farrington	Colchester	2		+2T	+15	+17	3	1
Geoff Johnson	Watford	3	-2T		+4	+17	2	2
Jonathan Toye	Downham Market	6	-15	-4		+9T	1	3
David Woolley	Wrest Park	9	-17	-17	-9T		0	4

Handicap (18-point games)'C' Block

Player	Club	H'cap	SS	CF	JS	MT	DR	AH	Wins	Rank
Stuart Stafford	Wrest Park	10		+3	+14		+1		3	1
Chris Frost	St. Albans	3	-3			+2T		+11	2	2=
Jonathan Sissons	Norwich	6	-14			+6T		+8	2	2=
Martin Tunmore	Colchester	14		-2T	-6T		+4T		1	4
David Robinson	Watford	10	-1			-4T		+8T	1	5
Adam Huby	Watford	7		-14	-8		-8T		0	6

All games: 2½ hours time limit.
Tie breaking: who beat whom, or a shoot-out at Manager's discretion.