Nailsea & District Croquet Club's B side beat Bath to win the South West Federation B-league at the neutral venue of Cheltenham recently.

Having finished the regular season unbeaten, Nailsea travelled to Gloucestershire in confident mood and this was backed up by winning both of the morning games to take a 2-0 lead into the lunch break. 

With three games in the afternoon, the side of Peter Bell, Sue Burns, Paul Arbos (captain) and Roger Baddeley only needed to win one to claim victory, but Bath fought back to serve up a nerby finish.

As the weather worsened and playing conditions became difficult, the scores tightened and nerves became frayed, but finally Nailsea made it across the line, albeit with a close final score of 3-2. 

All the members of the Nailsea team only started playing croquet within the last three years and for the majority of the team this was their first year of league competition is a great achievement and bodes well for the future of croquet in Nailsea.