IT WAS the culmination of the 2026 season when Camerton and Peasedown A, captained by Marion Button, travelled to Devon to play the South West Federation League Handicap Final against Bude.

The venue was the lawns of Budleigh Salterton which are some of the finest in the country; the croquet equivalent of playing a club cricket match at Trent Bridge. Budleigh was the host venue but the ‘home’ team was Camerton and Peasedown, so they took the lead in scheduling the games and providing the all-important cakes.

Bude fielded a team of eight; Andy Middleton (H3), Chris Ham (H5) and Captain, Geof Lawrence (H6), Helen North (H7), Frances Hornblow (H7), Peter Cash (H8), Dave Langdown (H8) and Vic Frampton (H9). The CPCC team of seven players was Ann Munton (H5), Simon Munton (H5), Jill Shaw (H6), Marion Button (H6) and Captain, Patrick Knight (H6), Phil Hendy (H8) and Jill Parker (H8).

In Handicap play each player needs to score a target number of hoops; the winner is the first to achieve their target. With the individual handicaps so similar many of the games were played ‘first to seven hoops’ as in a conventional 13 hoop game of Level play.

The match started well for Camerton and Peasedown who had wins in two of the early doubles games; in fact they lost only one game of doubles on the day. Singles play in the morning found CPCC up by 3 singles games to 2.

The afternoon games were initially shared equally but by the time the last singles went out CPCC had already won the 10 games they needed for a draw. Bude were faced with needing to win all the remaining five games of singles to hold CPCC to that draw. This proved an impossible task and Camerton and Peasedown ran out the winners - by 15 games to 5.