Club Night at the County, Monday 5th October

We had 10 players present on Monday 5th October including siblings, Rosey Bensley & Paul Gilbertson as well as Anthony Crerar who played in the parks event & this was his first appearance at a club evening. Paul had flown in from Monaco to be with us.

I (Martin) experimented with a new format where we had two groups of five players with the winner of each group to meet in the final. Unfortunately the format with 5 point matches did not work as well as I'd have liked. Whilst all matches were completed in the first group, in the second group a couple of matches were prolonged, as can happen & it was necessary to ask for the last matches to be played for one point so we would be able to finish by kicking out time. I would like to reassure everyone that the lessons have been learned & this format will only be tried if there are no more than eight players present.

Graeme Turner beat Paul Gilbertson in a play off in the first group. In the second group Keith was in great form & beat Chris, Anthony & Rosey in five point matches but was clearly disadvantaged by having to play his remaining games for one point including the group play-off with Rosey. Graeme beat Rosey in the final to record his first club tournament win. Well played, Graeme!

The next club evening will be on Monday 2nd November & will be the start of the league. There will be an announcement shortly with details of the format & I shall invite everyone to enter.

The hotly contested final

Martin Barkwill (L) with finalists Rosey Bensley and Graeme Turner