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