A determined Nailsea & District Croquet team, comprising Steve Durston, Tony Hinchliffe and captain Linda Shaw, secured victory at Cheltenham recently.

The short croquet handicapping system means that everyone either benefits from bisques - extra turns - or the really good players have to ‘peel’ their partner ball through one or more hoops in order to ‘peg out’ and win the game. So it’s a truly levelling handicapping system.

At Lunch time and the halfway stage of the match saw Nailsea on six wins against Cheltenham’s 2, but with eight more games to play, nothing could be taken for granted. The third round resulted in a 2-2 score, so everything was still left to play for in the final round.

Hinchliffe, who had never competed in Short Croquet before, was the first to win and score at least a draw for the team but Shaw and Durston each won their games, so the day finished on a safe margin of a 11-5 victory for Nailsea. But four of the games were won or lost on a one-point margin, and was tense right up until the end.