On a lovely warm day for croquet Chelmsford travelled to Colchester for their penultimate game in their section of the EACF B Level League competition on 2nd August. The match commenced with 4 doubles games with our pairs of Judith Hand/John Skuse and Paul Bridgman/Tony Frewin each beating Georgeen Hemming/Pam Hopper but losing to their second pair of Marian Manning/Jill Mills. All 4 games were keenly contested as the hoop score of 23/23 demonstrates. In fact 2 of the games ran over the time limit of 1 hour so there was only time for one set of 4 singles before lunch. To our surprise we won all 4 with Tony’s 7-4 defeat of Jill perhaps being the most convincing. The good work continued after the break with the second set being won 3-1 to make the score Colchester 3 Chelmsford 9 with Judith’s win over Jill Mills being the most convincing. Victory was assured after the third set was shared 2-2 and given the length of time the match had taken it was agreed to not play the final set of singles. Despite the margin of victory it has to be stressed that practically all the games were keenly fought as is shown by the hoop score of Colchester 86 Chelmsford 92. Match Score COLCHESTER 5 CHELMSFORD 11. Tony and Paul won all 3 of their singles . Our record now shows us as top of our league table and hopes are high that we will now qualify for the Final on Saturday 5th October at Newport. Before then we have however one more match to play at home to Bury on 6th September. Finally a word of thanks to Colchester for a match played in the best of spirits and for their hospitality throughout the day.