Middlesbrough Charity 1-Ball – April 2025

Following a long held tradition, Middlesbrough’s first Tournament of the season is a Charity 1 Ball. Consequently, 12 players from Clubs within the Croquet North Federation area met at Albert Park, Middlesbrough yesterday.

Weather throughout the week suggested almost perfect conditions with the potential for heatstroke or at least sunburn being the biggest threat. The weather forecast the day before the tournament was in total agreement – the fine weather would continue through Saturday. 

This is the North East – nobody was fooled or lulled into a false sense of security with all competitors arriving weighed down by several layers of clothing and even the odd bobble hat.

Divergence from the standard ‘all white’ attire was encouraged to acknowledge the chosen charity, the Alzheimer’s Society. Consequently, a splattering of blue was seen across the four lawns.

We had 12 players with AC Handicaps ranging from minus 1.5 to 20 (before adjustment for 1 Ball) in an ‘all play all’ format. No time limits were set although the Manager reserved the right to review this if necessary. As it happened, we started at 9.30am, managed continuous refreshment pauses, had a running lunch break and still had everything cleared up and heading for home before 5pm.

The Tournament winner was Dennis Scarr from Middlesbrough Club with 9 wins from 11 matches.

Other results were:

7/11: Andrew Carpenter.

6/11: Chris Stuttard, and Don Wright.

5/11: Nigel Durie, Julian Gibson, Andrew Killick, David Millener, Nigel Roberts, and Stephen Pratt.

4/11: Phil Errington, and Pat Memery.

Thankyou to all those who took part or helped out, and to the spectators who turned up to support the day. 

Hopefully the biggest winner on the day was The Alzheimer’s Society.