An Isle of Man team travelled to the inaugural four day European Team Croquet Championship recently.
The team of Kevin Garrad, Kevin Wells and Jean Wilcock were up against 15 other countries. The initial stages consisted of two blocks of six teams with a further three seeded teams (England, Ireland and Jersey) playing 4 teams from the blocks . Each match was made up of 2 games of association, and a round of best of 3 games of golf croquet.
In the block matches, the Isle of Man team came third with wins over Finland (3-0), Czech Republic (2-1), Germany (2-1). However, they lost to Belgium (1-2), Wales, who were the eventual winners, (1-2) and England (0-3).
This placed them ninth overall setting up a semi-final plate match against Sweden.
The Manx lost this game, with only Kevin Wells managing to overcome his opponent +24.
Sweden went on to win the Plate, beating Germany 2-1 in the final.
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