We have had a busier year than usual with four main events. In the 1st round of the Halford sadly Hewitt on a lovely bright and breezy day at Royal St. George’s, Sandwich we went down to Mill Hill 3½ - 1½. In the ensuing Plate competition we went down to Sherborne 3—0, though all the matches were tightly fought. Our 2004 campaign sees us start up against St. Paul’s at Sandwich at 8.00am on Thursday 1st April.
We achieved a rare feat in May in qualifying for the final stages of the Grafton Morrish Trophy and six good men and true journeyed to Hunstanton/Brancaster for the finals in October. On a sadly out of condition Hunstanton, they lost to recent winners KCS Wimbledon by 2½ - ½. The event was notable in getting two talented younger bloods into the team for the first time in Roland Ainsworth (D. 1992-97) and Michael Mudie (H. 1998-01) and we hope they will be able to join us for many more years. In the “wrinkliers” Cyril Grey event at Worplesdon in June we calmly won our first two rounds, as is almost now becoming a norm, this time against Ampleforth and Blundells, only to lose a nail biter 2—1 against Epsom in the quarter finals, with the deciding match losing at the 19th in the last game. Having won eight matches in this event in the last three years, we will be back.
The Autumn meeting was held at Woking in late October with the kind assistance of John Bridel (C. 1947-50) and a great day was had by all. The Hon. Secretary was sadly indisposed with a broken ankle but fourteen players signed up and the Whitmore Bowl was won by Robin Colbourne (H. 1960-65) on 35 pts with Robert Weir (H. 1962-67) in second place. A post-lunch foursomes was won by Nigel Dearsly (L. 1960-65) and Terry Mower (A. 1974-79) with 35 pts.
