On 19th August four teams contested the 26pt AC league event: Ashby, Leicester, Nottingham and Pinchbeck. It was the first time the event had been held at Leicester, and with only two lawns available the format had to be adjusted somewhat. Each match consisted of a doubles and a singles game, with 3 rounds of the teams playing each other. Different doubles pairings were used for each round, with the teams free to choose to play conventional or alternate strokes doubles. One substitute was allowed for each team, and Ashby and Leicester took advantage of this in the last round, to allow a player to attend an evening commitment, and to give a new player a chance to play competitive AC.
The result was decided on match wins (ie both singles and doubles game won), game wins, who-beat-who, then net hoops. The rounds were run with set finish times, which meant that the event finished roughly when expected – and before it was dark! At the end, every team had 3 game wins, but only 3 teams had one match win (Nottingham finished 1-1 in all their matches). The three teams had all beaten each other, and so it came down to net hoops and Ashby emerged as the winner after a few minutes checking the results.
Ashby will therefore represent the East Midlands in the Secretary’s Shield national competition next year.
The winning Ashby team of (L to R) Andy Sherwood, Arthur Rowe and Richard Sanville