2 p.m. Friday 18th to 2 p.m. Monday 21st July 1997
at Lake Hall, Birmingham University, England
Firstly, I really ought to apologise for the delay in the production of this results booklet. I originally hoped to get this booklet out sometime in August, but sadly with one thing and another good intentions fell by the wayside and here we are at the end of October! My biggest failing was not chasing up the various tournament organisers for their results sooner. Second mistake was getting most of the results together and then having to promptly jet off on holiday to the States. Next year my whip will be cracking fairly rapidly to get the organisers to send me the results earlier, although I should hastily add not everyone can be tarred with a trady brush! Most of the delay has been my fault for which I apologise again. At least all my savings are now blown so there won't be anymore lengthy hols to worry about.
Anyhow, before I add my thoughts on the Diplomacy and Manorcon in general, I think Iain would like his say first. Well he is the one who adjudicated the dip and besides not only is he bigger than me he's also promised to take me out to lunch...............
Vick Hall
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There were 28 boards in 3 rounds played by 90 players, of which 66 qualified for the individual tournament, a considerable increase on last year's numbers (15 players and 8 boards). I felt that the standard of play was quite high as well and with the exception of a bit of confusion on Sunday morning, all of the organisational arrangements went very well.
It was interesting to see just how much the top ten had changed this year, last year saw big changes in that area, and this year just reinforced the. Only 3of the names could be regarded as the "old Guard" and one of those has been in retirement for some time. A"New Guard" appears to be rising to the fore and combined with a selection of very powerful overseas players, it does make the tournament much more interesting. I look forward to next year with relish.
I've learnt a few more things, which is that when people advocate a top board, they don't want to be on it. It was an interesting experiment and not one that I think I will repeat. I must also remember to put on the sign-up sheets, please print your name in capital letters. At least one person lost out on a game because I'm not very good at joined up writing. I've checked the results long and hard but I expect that someone will spot a typo somewhere.
I'd like to thank Nick Kinzett for his help on the Saturday, David Norman for his help with some of the scoring, Peter Sullivan and Kath Collman for bringing me drinks, Peter Corlett for rescuing me each evening to an oasis of sanity and finally y'all for turning up and putting up another hard fought show. Let's try for 32 boards and 100 players next year.
Iain Bowen
| Best Austria | Pascal Montagna | 11 centres, Round 3, Top Board |
| Best England | Peter Hawkins | 14 centres, Round 2, Board 4 |
| Best France | Mark Wightman | 14 centres, Round 3, Board 3 |
| Best Germany | Vick Hall | 15 centres, Round 3, Board 8 |
| Best Italy | Simon Hornby | 12 centres, Round 3, Board 6 |
| Best Russia | Pascal Montagna | 11 centres, Round 2, Board 3 |
| Best Turkey | Colin Smith | 12 centres, Round 3, Board 2 |
Andrew Greco
For recovering from three years on 2 sc's, to end the game in second place on 8 sc's:
David Norman
| Round One Winner | Phil Day |
| Round Two Winner | Peter Hawkins |
| Round Three Winner | Mark Wightman |
The Freaky Fungus (Captain : Toby Harris)
Mark Wightman
| The Freaky Fungus | 182.96 |
| A Little Original Sin | 154.86 |
| The Cunning Plan | 144.34 |
| Bismark Babes | 118.96 |
| SNOT | 105.34 |
| Whad Whilja Stabbisterna | 84.06 |
| Cambridge University | 84.01 |
| Oxford University | 77.34 |
| Box Frenzy | 72.91 |
| GCHQ | 80.87 |
| Who Me | 45.82 |
| One Man's Rubbish | 30.01 |
(Top Twenty only. The figure in brackets is the round dropped)
| Name | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Rd 3 | Total |
| Mark Wightman | (15.08) | 30.27 | 47.02 | 77.29 |
| Phil Day | 48.73 | 25.19 | (7.37) | 73.92 |
| Peter Hawkins | 46.37 | 25.09 | 71.46 | |
| Pascal Montagna | (12.87) | 35.35 | 36.06 | 71.41 |
| Vick Hall | (22.49) | 25.19 | 45.74 | 70.93 |
| Andrew Greco | 39.25 | 26.39 | 65.64 | |
| Colin Smith | (8.73) | 25.29 | 36.49 | 61.78 |
| Simon Hornby | 26.71 | (3.99) | 35.02 | 61.73 |
| Adam Harris | 26.39 | 32.55 | (4.18) | 54.93 |
| Per Westling | 32.64 | 25.09 | (22.31) | 57.73 |
Before we move on to the rest of the results, I'd like to thank Iain on behalf of all the players for running such a smooth event. Us newbie organisers certainly know its not as easy to arrange as Iain constantly makes it seem. Trying a top board at the Convention was a good idea. It is something I have always been in favour of and I sadly just missed my chance of getting on to it this year! Consensus would appear to be though that if you are going to run a final day top table then the overall Tournament winner should come from this table and not from the 'lesser' tables. This gives the players a drive in the earlier rounds to ensure that they are on the top table and not holding back for a perceived easier passage. As Iain mentioned the competition this year and the standard of play overall was far greater than in the past and if the winner has to come from the top table then the earlier rounds are going to be even more competative.
The drawbacks are that if the winner has to come from the top table, then the other games in that round are somewhat diminished and I always feel that it adds to the event if someone can still come from virtually nowhere on the last day and still win the event. Many players are still in with a chance of winning, not just the top seven and this has to be a good thing. The other difficulty at Manorcon is that one of the two earlier rounds is also dominated by the most prestigious Team Dip Event in the World and the way people play in that round is undoubtedly affected by team considerations. So maybe dropping the top board is no bad thing.
A brief mention has to be made here to the fact that the Team Dip was won by Team Fungus (formally the Also Rans/Last Year's Winners). To win this event two years in sucession was some feat. Having never been done before. Winning it three years in a row will probably never be done again and so is pretty mind-blowing.
Manorcon is by far the most important Diplomacy convention in the UK, so it is good to see that the event is growing. Let's hope it does continue. You can rest assured that everyone involved in running the event will try hard to ensure it does so.
Of course, the Diplomacy was not the only sucessful event of the Convention.
organised by Nick Parrish
By any standards, the Die Siedler von Catan tournament was again a great sucess. By Saturday night, 50 games had been completed and I was a gibbering wreck, anticipating a final tally of 70+ games. In the event, many fewer tourament games were played on the Sunday (I have no idea why) but the final tally of 58 was still well up on last year's 46. Together with non-tournament and the non-eligible Seefahrer variant games, I estimate that 75 games of Siedler and variants were played over the weekend. In all, 96 people took part in tournament games, and the final results were as follows:
| Name | Played | Won | Score | |
| 1 | Duncan Adams | 4 | 4 | 48.55 |
| 2 | D Horton | 5 | 4 | 46.48 |
| 3 | L George | 5 | 4 | 41.25 |
| 3 | L George | 5 | 4 | 41.25 |
| 4 | M Butcher | 2 | 2 | 39.30 |
| 5 | M Sheiham | 5 | 4 | 37.79 |
| 6 | T Harris | 3 | 2 | 37.64 |
| 7 | C Smith | 4 | 2 | 36.86 |
| 8 | S Jones | 7 | 3 | 34.95 |
| 9 | N Kendrick | 5 | 2 | 34.85 |
| 10 | T Hetherington | 6 | 3 | 34.07 |
| 11 | B Mayling | 7 | 2 | 33.50 |
| 12 | E Read | 6 | 2 | 32.56 |
| 13 | T Reusch | 4 | 2 | 32.51 |
| 14 | N Kinzett | 2 | 1 | 31.59 |
| 15 | T Lancaster | 4 | 2 | 31.29 |
| 16 | R Biddle | 3 | 1 | 31.01 |
| 17 | M Dave | 3 | 1 | 30.50 |
| 18 | J Ferguson | 2 | 1 | 30.48 |
| 19 | M Skillern | 3 | 1 | 29.96 |
| 20 | N Holford | 6 | 2 | 29.88 |
I enjoyed running the tourament and look forward to doing so again next year. As several people have pointed out, the scoring system still needs further tweaking and anyone with any suggestions should feel free to put them to me at 189 Battersea Bridge Road, London SW11 3AS. Finally, hertfelt thanks to Chris Dickson for writing the computer program which made scoring the tournament so quick and easy, and to Mark Stretch for helping me process the results.
organised by Steve Jones
Overall, 14 players entered.
| First Round | Kevin McGowan defeated Ken Bottomer | 14-4 |
| Jeff Bryant defeated Chris Dearlove | 14-9 | |
| Nick Parrish defeated Chris Green | 14-3 | |
| Louise Auty defeated James Hardy | 14-11 | |
| Mark Jones defeated Adrian Maddox | 14-4 | |
| John Colledger defeated Mick Haytack | 14-10 | |
| Martin Bates defeated Simon Hornby | 14-11 | |
| Quarter Finals | Kevin McGowan defeated Jeff Bryant | 14-6 |
| Nick Parrish had a bye | ||
| Mark Jones defeated Louise Auty | 14-13 | |
| Martin Bates defeated John Colledge | 14-12 | |
| Semi-Finals | Kevin McGowan defeated Nick Parrish | 14-9 |
| Mark Jones defeated Martin Bates | 14-0 | |
| Final | Kevin McGowan defeated Mark Jones | 14-1 |
Congratulations to Kevin for winning the Croquet for the first time and commiserations to Mark. Many thanks to everyone for playing.
organised by Dane Maslen
There were 9 results submitted, involving a total of 32 players. The top ten players are listed below. All the other players only played one game.
| Name | Played | Score | |
| 1 | Len George | 4 | 128 |
| 2 | Jeff Edmunds | 3 | 122 |
| 3 | Derek Wilson | 6 | 113 |
| 4 | Colin Harden | 3 | 111 |
| 5 | Iain Alexander | 3 | 93 |
| 6 | David Smith | 1 | 78 |
| 7 | Chris Green | 1 | 77 |
| 8 | Simon Craddock | 1 | 75 |
| 9 | Dave Goldthorpe | 1 | 70 |
| 10 | Tony Hetherington | 1 | 59 |
organised by Dane Maslen
| Name | Played | Score | |
| 1 | Mark Sheiham | 4 | 149 |
| 2 | Simon Bouton | 4 | 138 |
| 3 | Mark Jordan | 5 | 127 |
And that almost rounds it up. At least for the results that I do have. Of the other tournaments, I seem to recall that Chris Dickson won the United, which is a fairly good acheivement despite a spate of NMR's!!
The Intimate Dip was won by Geoff Bache (Turkey) in a closely contested final with James Pinnion (France). Actually, I haven't a clue if it was closely contested or not, but as the Intimate Dip is over several hard-fought rounds, they both did well to get to the final in the first place.
That really is it. Hope to see you all next year...........
Vick Hall