SWINDON Croquet Club’s B Team achieved their first win for two years as they overcame the Bear of Rodborough by a narrow margin last Friday.

Playing on Swindon’s new lawns in sunny weather, the good-natured match started well for the home team when the doubles pair of Bill Marner and Roger Bedells won their game comfortably 14-5 against the Bear’s Carol Pittaway and Stephen Moss.

The other two morning games were disappointments, with Swindon's Mary Bedells losing 14-8 to Crawford Alexander despite having led 8-7 at one stage.

Swindon's Tony Mayer failed to get his eye in until late in his game against Nick Hurst and lost 12-9 on time.

In the afternoon, Marner was in very good form and soon beat Alexander 14-6.

Mary Bedells struggled to start with in her clash against Moss and the scores were level at 8-8 before she found her form and went round the final three hoops and peg scarcely stopping to win 14-8.

Roger Bedells, however, could not hold Hurst and lost his game 14-8.

This meant the match was balanced at 3-3 and the result depended on the last game to finish – Mayer v Pittaway.

By this time Mayer had regained his accuracy and Pittaway was having a bad day, so the Swindon player went on to win 14-3, thus giving the final result of 4-3 to Swindon.