It all started when Old Wrekinians and Old Bedfordians had a rest day at the Halford Hewitt in 2008.  We played a friendly match at Rye and thoroughly enjoyed an honourable half.  Following a couple of clarets the question; “Why don’t we arrange a friendly fixture?” was asked.  We exchanged e-mail addresses with the secretary of the Old Bedfordian team and kept up an exchange of e-mails until our next meeting at the Halford Hewitt AGM in January 2009.  Following some more alcohol consumption (there seems to be a theme emerging here) a date and venue were agreed for a fixture, Sunday 18 October at Woburn!

The Bedford team members were splendid hosts for what is planned to be an annual fixture.  Woburn is a great venue with three championship standard golf courses.  We played on the Dukes course which was well presented on a cool, slightly frosty, but sunny morning.

Although we were only able to field a team of eight players, Bedford brought along two reserves in order to enable us to play five matches.  The format was a fourball match play with handicap.  Each match played to a finish in order to determine “holes up” overall.  In the end it was a victory to Bedford.  The results were as follows:

Wrekin v Bedford 
Sunday 18 October 2009
Match No Wrekin Match score   Bedford Match score
1 Guy  Shepherd   v Brian Gillett (Capt) 7 & 6
  Chris Ledingham     Iain Pratt (Match organiser) 
2 Charles Hartley 1 up v Nick Wade 
  John Withers     Nick Charlton 
3 John Hall   v Rob Mason 2 & 1
  Rodney Rigby     Rob Haysom 
4 Jonathan Evers (Captain)   v Simon Bevan 2 & 1
  Gary Little (Bedford)     Adam Wilkinson 
5 Simon Westgarth 6 & 5 v Anthony Ormerod 
  Simon Kimber (Bedford)     Arthur Brown 
Total   2     3

Following the match we had a sumptuous lunch (in the company of the Duke of Bedford and his family no less) and I presented the Old Wrekinian v Old Bedford Challenge Trophy to the Bedford Captain, Brian Gillett.

Thanks to all the Old Wrekinians who came to the match which, by general consensus, was a great success.  A return match is pencilled in for 24 October 2010 at Little Aston.  As ever, all are welcome to come. 

If you are interested in playing in this year’s fixture, please drop me a line at westgarth5@btinternet.com or telephone on 07870 602184.

Simon Westgarth
Match Organiser.