Mary Rose 2022

v Woking (home)     14 June     lost 2-3

George Collin (0) and John Bevington (1½) lost to Nick Harvey (0) and Andrew Dutton (½) -3

Peter Aspinall (10) lost to David Boyd (2) -5

George Collin beat Nick Harvey +5

John Bevington beat David Boyd +12

Peter Aspinall lost to Andrew Dutton -24

Nick Evans’s last-minute forced withdrawal and our inability to find a replacement meant that the match was played with teams of three, on a warm and sunny day.

For Mary Rose matches players must be scratch or higher with a minimum aggregate handicap of four for four players. At this level games are only rarely finished quickly with triple peels. There will usually be some good breaks, but these can be interspersed with failed hoops, tactical errors and other examples of “previous misplay”. With no time limits games can go on for some time, and if lunch can wait no longer the morning doubles may be pegged down, with both teams silently hoping that the results of the afternoon singles will be enough to decide the match without having to complete the doubles in fading light.

Inevitably the doubles was pegged down, so it was fortunate that we were only a week away from the summer solstice. In the only singles game of the morning Peter Aspinall, with little experience of advanced play, pushed David Boyd all the way and only lost -5. After a good lunch provided by Sharman Harral, Peter lost to Andrew and John beat David, so we were 2-1 down. Nick then hit a 40 yard roquet from corner 2 to corner 4 or vice versa, went round and pegged George out, the other balls both for 4-back, leaving himself separated on the west boundary opposite hoop 2. George took the shot from B baulk, hit, got a rush to 4-back and finished.

Back to the doubles. The fact that it had gone on so long already was in part due to the fact that the hoops were in fresh holes and firmer than Marble Arch. John had several attempts at 4-back before finally getting through and running penult and rover, declining George’s urgings to peel him (it was a bit long and the opponerts were together). After putting one opponent ball close to the peg the next shot (a 45º split) went completely awry and left the other opponent ball in the middle of the lawn instead of the east boundary. With Andrew still for penult there was time for more opportunities, including an attempt by Nick to peg John out, but Andrew eventually managed to peg out to win the game +3 and with it the match, sometime after 8pm.

Our thanks to Bryan Harral for organising and being on hand throughout what was a long but enthralling day - a typical Mary Rose match, in other words.

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