Tournaments

Our annual A Class AC Tompkinson Shield will be held on 16th/17th August 2025.

Our B level AC Sally Nicholls Trophy was held on 7th/8th June 2025, for handicaps 2 – 8.

There were five past winners of the Sally Nicholls Trophy in the field this year. It was managed by Tony Whateley who reports below:

In spite of a few showers on the Saturday, only one game had to be pegged down at 7 pm and only John Henderson from Penrith had won all his three games in the Flexible Swiss format.

(Full details on croquetscores at https://croquetscores.com/2025/ac/edgbaston-b-level-h-c-2-8/competition/edgbaston-b-level-advanced-ac-h-c-2-8 )

There were a number of players on 2 wins, and the situation resolved itself nicely (from the Manager’s point of view) after the first games on Sunday: only John Henderson had 4 wins with Stephen Skelton from Keswick and Michael Finnigan from Nottingham on 3 wins. As John had beaten Michael in a previous round, a simple final was set up for the afternoon, when John beat Stephen convincingly +20.

Peter Wilson from Fylde, a winner in 2010, provided a number of interesting/entertaining moments. In successive games, he took his first ball to peg and set precise contact leaves.

Against Adrian Morris from Kenilworth (Adrian playing Green and Brown) he set this fiendish leave:

It seems impossible to get a break going from this leave…unless someone knows better ?

John Henderson (playing White and Pink) is seen pondering his options from Peter’s different precise contact leave in this photo.

This proved much easier to get going from than the previous situation.

However, Peter thinks his best moment was running 4 back from the end of A baulk to the applause of a number of watchers !

Our former Chairman and President, Ken Jones of Bury, presented the Trophy to John Henderson

Ken and John thanked the Edgbaston Club members for lawn preparation , managing and catering.

Previous winners of this event were:

The Sally Nicholls Trophy

1995 Paul Swaffield

96 Michael Blackwell

97 Sam Tudor

98 Ben Elwell

99 Daniel Mills

2001 Bill Sidebottom

02 Alison Thursfield

03 Paul Miles

04 Silvia Steer

05 BJD Kerr

06 /07 Andrew Winn

08 Nicholas Saxton

10 Peter Wilson

11 Richard Kimberley

12 Brian Christmas

13 Ian Slater

14/15 A. Brandwood

16 Dave Gunn

17 Adrian Morris

18 Robert Upton

19 Adam Moliver

20 not played

21 not played

22 Michael Finnegan

23 not played

24 Ged Smolskas

25 John Henderson

Our next (2025) Tompkinson Shield for A class -1 to 5 will be on 16th/17th August

Report of last year’s event as follows:

By Nick Steiner:

Fourteen players with handicaps ranging from -1 to 3.5 played on the three well-groomed lawns at Edgbaston croquet club. The competition was superbly managed as a swiss tournament by Andrew Gregory. There were no time limits, all the games finishing promptly with a lot of interactive play. There were some very close scores and only one game (Mike Porter v Mark Simmerson) finished with a score of +26. There were many attempts at triple peels, and Roger Tribe attempted a tpo. Congratulations to Neil Adams who completed three tps. The contest remained close up to the finish. Mike had beaten Roger, but still had to beat Neil to win which he did +11. So Mike won. Mike and Roger both had 5 wins. Five players had 3 wins, four with 2 wins, two on 1, and one on zero. The man of the match was Andrew. Not only did he manage well, but as one of the higher handicaps, (2.5) he was only beaten by Mike(-0.5) and Neil(-1). A very pleasant weekend was had by all. No rain, pleasantly warm but not too hot, some sun at times. As usual Edgbaston club provided a delicious buffet lunch with tea and coffee throughout and cake for tea.

Previous winners of both this event are as follows:

The Tompkinson Shield

2002 Paul Swaffield

2003 Henry Fellows

2004 Dave Kibble

2005 Martin Granger-Brown

2006 Martin Granger-Brown

2007 Nigel Polhill

2008 Brian Storey

2009 James Hopgood

2010 Gabrielle Higgins

2011 Nigel Polhill

2012 Paul Swaffield

2013 Richard H. Smith

2014 Andrew Gregory

2015 Andrew Gregory

2016 David Foulser

2017 Cesar Miranda Reyes

2018 Cesar Miranda Reyes

2019 Nigel Polhill

2020 Jonathan Wolfe

2021 Andrew Willis

2022 Clive Goode

2023 Jack Good

2024 Mike Porter