Players who had joined one of the 14 CCA Clubs since September 2019, were on a 12, 14 or 16 handicap and had not yet competed in Interclub were invited to enter a competition run on the morning of our Closing Day.

We expected around 20 entries but ended up with 40, representing 10 of our 14 clubs. Unfortunately, some had to withdraw, and we ended up with 8 blocks of 4 players with two blocks playing on a lawn. We had to be finished by 1 pm so went for a round robin format with each block of 4 playing 3, 7-point levels games and then Block A playing off against Block B to end up with a winner for each lawn. This meant that everyone played four 7-point games as well as allowing for lots of socialising with members from other clubs between games.

Many of the competitors had never played a singles game before, so the supervising referees on each lawn were kept very busy. Thank you to our five referees, Bruce McLay, Nigel Grondin, John Yarrall, Gay Jones and Duncan Dixon.

The format and withdrawals created a few issues for the managers, two of whom were managing their first tournament, but we coped. Apologies to Libby Newcombe who started in a block of five players and ended up on her own. Well done to Sylvia MacFarlane and Helen Webber for their excellent work, you make a great management team.

Many of the players had never filled an AHS card in before so help was on hand to show them how to use the charts to work out points won/lost and five players also reduced their handicaps. This will stand them in good stead for Interclub which is also Levels play. Thanks to Janet Scott, Esme Burt and others who helped out here.

After a chilly start we had a beautiful Canterbury day, and it was great to see players from so many clubs competing against each other and enjoying each other’s company. We are looking forward to seeing many of them competing in the Interclub competition next season and I will be running regular coaching/rules sessions over the winter to help them prepare for this. If you are interested, please email me at chorncastle1@gmail.com

Thank you to Fendalton CC for allowing us to use their lawns and to Mike Dawson and Vina Gough-Jones for turning out at 7.15 am to set everything up. A big thanks to Esme Burt and her team for their hard work in the kitchen for both this competition and the CCA prize-giving that followed.

Full results are on Croquet Scores at https://croquetscores.com/2021/gc/cca-newcomers.