Crossword Centre Prize Puzzle November 2020

 Hoping for a Hat-trick? by Yimin

Hoping for a Hat-trick? PDF

Some clues have an extra word.  The initial letters of those words in clue order spell three names associated with a place.  A prominent feature of the place appears in the unclued 14, 32 and 33 (four words).  Solvers should highlight the name of the place in the completed grid.

Across
1. Sporting authority starts to reduce competitors’ steroid evaluations – a mockery (5)
5. Invigorate Northern Italy for base, brought back Victor Emmanuel (6)
10. Exercise, remain active, and catch extremely gorgeous girl (5)
11. Regional Health Authority collects empty yogurt cups (5)
12. Refuse up North the hasty treatment (5)
14. Unclued
15. Navigation system unveils centre of Ossetia in Georgia (3)
16. Rod losing head in front of eastern Egyptian dancing girl (4)
19. Cavalryman’s pair of horses almost ready to tilt … almost (6)
20. Three kings? A couple followed by magnificent Nebuchadnezzar (9)
23. Oh! Set in rolled gold, emerald of luminous green (6)
26. “Instruct Fatima regularly,” rules mystic (4)
28. Fawn having lost Sergeant-Major’s weapon (3)
29. Half-unsighted, edge turning ball in start of night-time cricket (8)
32. Unclued
33. Unclued
34. Lance once intended to flee, hiding lover in Gretna Green (5)
35. Notice on X-ray – born with base of spine attached to different organ (6)
36. Lawless uncouth Yankee lost dosh (5)

Down
1. Legal decision overturned 18th century enclosure – profitable days over! (6)
2. Once a month before a meal take one dose of laudanum (5)
3. Ditch Romeo in Glastonbury, run to mother in Stratford-upon-Avon (4)
4. Careless cloth-eared teen, amazingly talented, lacking someone who repeats things (6)
5. Bustles about local women and shapes frocks (5)
6. Reject marginal reading in the bible to annoy Levite (3)
7. Tailless cat ascended mountain pass – it killed antelope (7)
8. Budget we initially estimated covers case (5)
9. Princess born for king in extraordinary bond (5)
13. Order provided about nursing slightly mad white folk (5)
17. Poet’s youthful freshness marks a romantic yen over the first part of the day (7)
18. Crew lose most of young salmon from ship’s load (5)
21. By the way on Tiber? Indeed, curiously (6)
22. Delicate management uses diamonds in no trumps – endplay ultimately (6)
23. Country house where Head of Duma is served afternoon tea? (5)
24. Ros and Brian alternately constructed solution’s principal route (5)
25. Topless bloke in Ibiza’s game! (5)
27. Addict’s doomed state (5)
30. Once valiant prince now essentially weak (4)
31. Programme to raise awareness is French (3)

To enter this competition, send your entry as an image or in list format including the highlighted name to ccpuzzles@talktalk.net before 8th December 2020. The first correct entry drawn from the hat will receive a book from the Chambers range, which has been donated by Chambers.

This is Yimin’s 3rd Crossword Centre puzzle.  Yimin will offer an additional prize to the first solver drawn from the electronic bag whose correct solution is accompanied by the correct explanation of the title and theme.  The archive of Crossword News at the old Crossword Centre blog (https://crosswordcentre.wordpress.com/) will help, as will the ‘Themes’ of the 2009 puzzles in the database of Listener Crossword found under Crossword Links of that blog.