Maldon Lakeside welcomed us to Forrester Park on 22nd July for our final fixture in the EACF Handicap League. Our team of Paul Bridgman (4) John Skuse (4) Bob Jones (5) and David Dawsey (7) started well by winning both doubles but our hosts hit back by winning five of the next eight singles on what was going to prove a long hot day of competitive croquet. Their team of Peter Howe (6) Neil Grandy (8) Chris Joslin (10 and Jill Joslin (11) armed with shrewdly played extra turns were proving that there are very few one sided games in this type of match. The 3rd set of singles went Chelmsford’s way 3-1 thanks to two 7-6s and a 7-5 and our lead was 8-6 but the final set could easily have gone Maldon’s way 3-1 but for a nail biting 13th hoop battle between Maldon team captain Chris and John who rather luckily ran the hoop after some really sub-standard play. Final score Maldon Lakeside 8 (106 hoops) Chelmsford 10 (105 hoops). Chelmsford’s star on the day was Paul who won all his singles. No fewer than 7 games went to the 13th hoop with Chelmsford winning 6 of them. At least the handicappers had done a good job! A feature of the match was the sporting attitude of both teams given the difficult conditions for accurate play. We look forward to our next fixture with Maldon Lakeside at Writtle next year. With three wins out of four this year it would seem that we are likely to finish as runners-up to Southchurch who have one more match to play.