Gainsborough duo and Branston competitor beat home-club players as Woodhall Spa Croquet Club hosts Lincoln Cup

Teams from around Lincolnshire competed for the Lincoln Cup at Woodhall Spa Croquet Club this weekend.

And despite members of the host club impressing, it was the visitors who left with the honours.

On Saturday the doubles competition was held and Sunday saw the singles competition take place.

With the weather forecast giving rain for the whole weekend organisers were expecting a bit of a washout.

However, as usual, the weather forecasters got it wrong and we basked in glorious sunshine for most of the weekend.

In the doubles, 30 people played with several substitutions being made due to players being pinged by the Covid app during the week leading up to the competition.

Due to the Covid restrictions teams were allocated to a lawn and only played on that lawn for the whole day.

After a hard day’s play Gainsborough pairing Mike Bilton and Tony Fisher defeated Marion Pile and Pauline Donner from the Woodhall Spa club in their semi-final.

In the final they met another Woodhall pairing, this time of Barrie Darling and Tom Johnson.

On this occasion Mike and Tony won the close contest.

In the single’s Darling again got to the final.

However, he couldn’t manage to lift the trophy as this time he was beaten by Dave Brammer of Branston.

Woodhall Spa’s B team ended the club’s run of losses with a win at Dunston, scoring 4-8 games and 51-58 hoops.