King of spades down under

Philip chats with the Adelade groundsman.

9th November 2019

Coaching Badges

Cyd and Jan have been given G/C coaching badges. Philip has been awarded a A/C club coaching badge.

9th November 2019

Fylde Annual Dinner and Prize Giving

A lovely montage of the runners and riders at our Annual Dinner. Centre stage are 5 of our 15 new members this year. Surrounding from top right working clockwise Fylde’s very own band “Primary Colours”, Earning their blues for first time representing Fylde competitively – Aileen Watt and Alison Broughton and presenting the awards to the Fylde Internal Competition winners founder member Geoffrey Lipshaw with Maurice Myers ( Trafalgar Plate Handicap Golf), Ian Theakstone (Green Trophy Handicap AC), Jan Smith and Cyd Harbottle (Tower Trophy Handicap Golf Doubles), Liz Wilson (Rose Bowl AC Advanced) and Cyd Harbottle (Midgeland Trophy Handicap Golf). We had a wonderful night, netting £285 for the club. A well organised event (thank you Cyd, Jan and Liz) with good food and good company.

9th November 2019

BIG Trophy

Nine new members competed for the Fylde Beginners In Golf Trophy. The weather was glorious and a 4/5 round Swiss event kept all competitors happily occupied. Also busy were the 4 experienced players rushing on with rule corrections and refereeing decisions. Derek Matthews won with 4 straight wins and four players ended up on 3/5 with the runner-up (Phil Snowden) decided on net hoops. Well done to all who played. We hope to see you all playing competitively next season and offering to play in the league matches.

19th September 2019

F.A.B report

All four 2019 AC beginners entered the FAB Cup this year. All of them have come such a long way in mastering a very difficult game. Coach Liz Wilson said she would be happy if they made 4 hoops in a game and all of them managed at least that. The format was all play all and by the end of game three more than one of the competitors was completely exhausted with the tactical thinking. Phil Snowden won all three games and even pegged out in the first game and continued by scoring 11 hoops in the other two. The other competitors won one game each. Pictures shows (from left to right) Mike Sault, Carole Waters, Rachel Snowden, Philip Snowden. And the other one Liz Wilson falling over in amazement as Philip achieves a peg-out.

Well done guys – Lizzie is proud of you!

14th September2019

Liz wins the Bowl

Liz beat Peter 2-0 in the best of three Bowl.

24th August 2019

Maurice wins Trafalgar Plate Final

Maurice and Sue C made a special day of this by both contributing to the club funds and by encouraging spectators to be there. Patricia had prepared strawberry meringues and cakes as well as a jug of Pimms No1. Court 1 was in use and the players both donned their blues in the Sunshine. M took 4 XT and S had 1 XT, Boss was the Referee in charge.

There were several moments worthy of recording. M came out of the traps playing a good Blue and took an XT to position it on the sweet spot. S could have gone to half way but chose to shoot at Blue with her next two shots. Although missing, it was a correct decision as M crashed through landing near hoop two and of course taking an XT to position.

S kept her cool and at hoop four dislodged Blue which had been placed with an XT. S then made some 5 foot hoops with well controlled smooth strokes but M kept his nose in front. Play continued with hoops being shared when hoop 10 with M leading 5-4 was approached. M used his XT but slightly overhit it and dribbled through the hoop, which of course did not score. The other balls arrived and M played Black backwards to 6 inches infront of the hoop. S was in good position to clear it but something went wrong in the shot and Black was knocked through. This was a big turning point in the match because it also meant M was first to approach 11 and also first to shoot at it.

S played the fourth ball (Yellow) towards the hoop. Blue had an angled 5 footer, the spectators held their breath, would S take her XT to clear Blue or hope for a miss and a point next with Red? S chose to hold back the XT and M made the hoop to win 7-4.

24th August 2019

Betty narrowly misses out in the C class final at Nottingham

34 players competed in the multi-classed events in the six day tournament at Highfields Park in Nottingham. Four out of the six days were played in the rain with one afternoon seeing lawns one to five underwater and matches having to be pegged down to be played later.

Betty reached the C class level play final but was unable to compete with the accuracy of the lower handicapped player who also had home advantage. Losing – 19. She received the runners up trophy of a Nottingham mug .Her resilience in wet conditions was commented on as being exceptional. She was on two occasions the only player willing to play in the torrential rain and on one occasion beat her opponent in the prelims plus 23 in the soggy conditions.

Betty also reached the quarter finals of the Robin Hood handicap, again losing to a local who went to peg with his first ball and rover with his second turn, he was on paper favourite to win as he was a lot lower handicap, but Betty battled on bravely unfortunately losing -8.

A semi -final place was also reached with partner Lee but they were outclassed again by locals with home advantage.

It wasn’t all croquet, the Friday evening fish and chips social included entertainment on the keyboard by Charlie who had an eclectic mix of genres from classical to pop, and on one occasion was accompanied by Betty singing Stupid Cupid, which brought smiles to all.

18th August 2019

Roots

FCC started at Fairhaven Lake before moving to Hope Street Recreation Ground. Today FCC is taking part in the Fairhaven Open Day with a couple of courts. The ground is very hard and compacted so Ian fashioned an auger to drill out the soil for the hoops which was a great sucess. See it in action here

There are numerous sports being represented at the lake today and the event has been arranged and coordinated well by the team. It is a great shame that the only factor out of their control brings miserable weather to dampen the morning. As you can see the hard surface has not soaked up much water from the rain yet.

Boss hits the first ball on the lawn for over 25 years.

Well in true Fylde fashion the rain disappeared and the Sun did its best. The wind however remained which was slightly concerning with the archery just across the fence! We had over 40 trying, probably half locals. We have potentially 7 recruits for the Golf Course and 3 for AC along with 3 others from the taster sessions. We also had many important Fylde “tourist” organisers and of course the Gazette photographer! A great day hosted by Cyd, Liz, Jan, Shelagh and Philip with visits from Ian, Jean and Betty Bates.

26th May 2019

débutante

Congratulations to Alison Broughton for competing in her first competition and exceeding her targets! 2 hoops in the first game, 4 in the 2nd and then 7 in the last!!!! Well done Alison She did Fylde proud.

Alison at the Millennium 2019.

Also competing for Fylde was Philip Bass who was beaten to the play offs by the eventual winner.

11th May 2019

Talking Croquet

Paul & Liz

NW Federation Chair, Paul & Fylde CC Chair, Liz were interviewed by Scott Wallis on his "Talking Sport" show - a show that avoids discussing Football, Cricket, Rugby or any of the other 'mainline' pursuits and gives air-time to 'minor' less popular sports like ours.

 

We wish to thank Scott, he treated us seriously and with sincerity allowing us to explain our passion.

11th April 2019

Falcons take flight

Fylde Falcons met up for a pre-season coaching session from Captain Betty Bates on Saturday afternoon. They were told about the changes to the Golf Croquet rules and then had a few practice games. Association and Golf was also being played by other members. In all over 16 members were around to share in the sunshine and refreshments. It was also good to see ex-members Brian Russell and Norman Smith who clearly haven't lost their touch!

30th March 2019

Lawns Open !

The border lines are now all clearly marked for all to see.

24th March 2019

Request for short delay

Several days lawn preparation have been lost due to the heavy rain last week. Nevertheless it seems that by 30th March they will be open and ready for play. In the coming week a weeding party is being organised so please contact us if you can help.

22nd March 2019

Work continues

Great turn out today of the usual suspects plus 6 helpers.

Hover craft.

More problems to solve.

More sunshine and a different selection of volunteers – 10 in all! Squads cleared the West boundary, cleaned the huts and storage shed and burned all the rotten wood Philip and Ian had a difficult time getting the spreader to work satisfactorily – the eventual solution meant we had to run with it to get it to spread! A relay team managed the job admirably Next job is to mow and mark the lawns – this will be toward the middle of March

27th February 2019

Work continues

Fancy some mud wrestling? Philip has started work on the new drainage pipe laying with the paid help of Harrison Ball Great progress today as half the ditch has been filled in.

Well done Philip for the work so far.

1st February 2019

Work continues

It is hard to imagine how our drainage could be improved but...

Preparations for the new and improved drainage on the East of the lawns have been completed. The next stage of laying a pipe will take place shortly. This essential work will take the club forward with reduced maintenance for many years.

23rd November 2018

Steve Wins Weather Photographer

A British photographer (sic) has scooped a global prize with his shot of lightning over Blackpool. Stephen Cheatley's picture depicts the Lancashire seaside resort - known for its annual illuminations - lit up by a more celestial source during a storm. The amateur lensman beat 4,000 fellow snappers to be crowned Weather Photographer of The Year with his Electric Blackpool image. Judges said it had been "an extremely competitive year".

Electric Blackpool.

Mr Cheatley said he set out after an "intense" summer storm a few days earlier had made him "determined to try to capture some strikes this time". His persistence was rewarded when, just after midnight, Blackpool's famous promenade was lashed by rain and multiple bolts of lighting. He said he chose the seafront location to capture some "famous buildings in the shot like the piers and Blackpool Tower". Mr Cheatley was named overall winner, while prizes were also given in the over-17s and under-16s categories.

BBC, November 2018

The 2018 News Archived Here

23rd November 2018