Would you believe it!? We have had over seventy different people play croquet on our lawns this year! Not bad given we had a membership of just fourteen at the start of the season. We opened up the lawns to our neighbours and friends, and acquired six new members during the season!

We have played a lot more GC (golf croquet) this year, and this is the generally accepted route in to playing croquet these days. It’s a good fun game, but it can be as competitive and mentally challenging as AC. We entered a team into the SECF competitions and had a great time visiting several clubs including Wimbledon (at the All England Club). Our new members are playing GC and so are our guests. Tennis players must have wondered why there are so many people standing on the croquet lawn, and why are they all laughing and enjoying themselves? Drop your rackets, come on over and find out!

Simon Charrington was our most improved player, and he joins Steve Edney and Roger Stearn as 12 handicap AC players. Certainly the consistency of Roger and Simon led to us “retaining” the SECF B League (we won it in 2019, and of course the competition was cancelled in 2021).

We have received many compliments about the lawn. It certainly is looking nice and green, and it is playing quite well too. Thanks to income from grants and from guest events, we have spent a little bit more than usual on treatments and equipment. Our aim is to make our lawn faster so, instead of using brute strength, anyone can hit a ball from one boundary to another (if that’s the shot to play). We will not get to the standards of the richer Croquet clubs but its good to have this as a target.

Our target next year is to have even more fun, and to actively encourage local people and ESC members of other sports to come and give croquet a go. You are always welcome.

Here are some photos from the year:

For the second year running it’s not been possible to run all of the usual internal competitions. Two were competed for:

AC Singles Open Knockout, and

GC Singles (Handicap) Knockout.

The AC final was a tight well contested match.  After a slow start by both players Roger slowly started to build a lead one or two hops at a time and took the score to 10 -3. Simon then started to fight back again largely with one or two hops at a time and with about 50 minutes left on the clock had reduced Roger’s lead to 13 -10.  Roger tried to create a 4 ball break sending one ball to pivot and the other approaching Simon’s two balls but missed the subsequent roquet attempt.  Simon was then able to create and sustain a 4 ball break taking control of the game at 18 -13 with time now running out. Roger was on the lawn 19 -14 down when time ran out and was trying to create a minimum 5 hoop break out of not much, finally ending with his yellow ball in the jaws of hoop 6 and the game was over.  Simon was the winner at 19 -15. The one significant break in a tense and fairly even match had proved decisive.

The GC final was closely contested by Hugh and Roger S.  Hugh won the toss. The first game started with some very quick hoop running and soon reached 5-3 to Hugh including a one hit hoop run on hoop 4.  The remainder took a while longer with Hugh going on to win 7-5. The second game reached 5-3 to Roger, who then held on to win 7-5. The final game was even throughout, Roger won hoop 10 to square at 5-5, Hugh won hoop 11 for 6-5 and finished with his ball over halfway to hoop 12, Roger then ran hoop 12 with his first shot to take the match to the golden hoop, leaving both Hugh and Roger with an off-side ball.  Hugh played an excellent shot from the penalty area into a hoop running position and with no interference coming from the next 3 balls proceeded to run the hoop and win the match.

For a full list of trophy winners, click on the Hall of Fame link

Our most senior Croquet member, in his ninetieth year, Pat Freeman has decided to hand over line painting duties to others from this month on. Thankfully, Pat will still be around to give advice, and also of course to play croquet. We hope he may also feel up to a bit of woodwork, replacing felt on the pavilion roof, painting sheds and everything else he has done for us over many years…

… and it has been many years that Pat has faithfully done all this and more, for which we thank him greatly!

Pat honed his line painting skills by watching the professionals at the All England Club, Wimbledon, where he stewarded, again for many years.

We are not sure how many years, but it has been many, many years!

Here are a few pictures of Pat’s final lines, which, I think you will agree, he never fluffed!