Author: David Guyton

James Hawkins, a leading AC player and author of Complete Croquet, is to be congratulated on getting croquet on to the Chris Evans Radio 2 show. He initially phoned in to “put Chris right” on the history of croquet at Wimbledon a few weeks ago and was promptly “rewarded” with a live interview with Chris within days. A brave man! And whilst James in the interview may not have revealed anything new to croquet aficionados he did get croquet into the public arena. Not many of us create the opportunity to talk to 9 million people in the UK about croquet and to get on to the Chris Evans IPlayer site for more listeners (along with a photo of AC World Champion, Stephen Mulliner lining up a hoop 1 peel).

Listen in at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p058x6kh

Well done, James

John Dawson

Club secretary John Dawson was one of the Croquet Association organisers at the recent BBC Countryfile Live event at Blenheim Palace last week. This is his report:

CROQUET MAKES ITS DEBUT AT COUNTRYFILE LIVE

Countryfile Live is an annual show (spun off from BBC TV’s Countryfile) held over four days at Blenheim Palace, near Oxford, in August and attended by over 120,000 people. This year the CA persuaded the organisers to allow a croquet lawn to be set up in the centre of the Show on which visitors could play under the tutelage of experienced CA players.

Firstly Tony Newport and Pat Edgington from the Eynsham club had to make a lawn out of the parkland.

Then 50 players from neighbouring clubs in the South and South West Federations volunteered to man the lawn over nine hours on each of the four days.

The result was hundreds of visitors got 15 minute slots to play croquet and thoroughly enjoyed it. Tens of thousands of visitors watched as they walked past the lawn and many stopped to chat to the CA volunteers in white to learn what croquet was about and pick up some leaflets. Many were local but some came from as far afield as Ireland, Spain, Australia and Canada. The players were of all ages and we even got BBC Countryfile presenter, Anita Rani “to give croquet a go”. Afterwards she tweeted “Today I play croquet! I’m a bloomin’ natural”.

Over 80 people were sufficiently interested to leave their email and post code details for Dave Gunn, our Development Officer, to steer them towards clubs near their homes and a further 20 had serious chats with members of clubs local to the Show. How many will end up playing croquet we don’t know but it was clear that the CA and modern croquet raised its public profile and made an impact on visitors to the Show. Many thanks must go to the 50 volunteers who manned the lawn with great enthusiasm, to Tony and Pat for setting up the lawn, to the Eynsham club for providing the equipment, to Chris Roberts, Klim Seabright and Frances Colman for recruiting the volunteers and to Liz Larsson and Dan Atiyah of the CA office for managing the complexities of the admin.

 

There was a national Love Parks Week from 14 to 23 July to celebrate these valuable open spaces and recreation areas. As its contribution to the event, Cheshire West and Chester Council sent out members of its Green Space team to local parks with special heart-shaped notice boards for park users to write their own personal message “I love my park because … ”

The Green Space team happened to visit Westminster Park on the afternoon of Monday, 17 July, when the weekly association croquet session was in full swing. Mustering all their literary skills, the players gladly obliged and displayed their completed heart-shaped notice boards which were duly photographed and published on the Council website.

As all our members deserve their five minutes of fame the photograph is reproduced below.

Chester had another busy week’s play in four away matches.

On Tuesday, 11 July, ten players went to Craig-y-Don at Llandudno for the annual friendly fixture between the two sides. There were many close games during the day but in the end Chester went down in what proved to be a generally tight contest. The club is now looking foward to staging a return match at home in September.

On the following day, Wednesday, 12 July, the Chester Centurions team travelled to Earby to face Pendle Tykes in the North West Level Play Golf Croquet league. The team of David Crawford (captain), Chris Slater and Trevor Farrell enjoyed a good day’s play beating the opposing Pendle team 12 – 6.

At the weekend, another team of Jerry Guest, David Boyd and John Dawson tried hard but lost all their games in the North West Advanced B Level league in an away match against Fylde on Saturday, 15 July.

On the following day, Sunday, 16 July, Chris Thomas (captain), Jayne Taylor, Maureen Ivens and Janet Jackson won their North West golf handicap match 10 – 8 at Bury, enjoying a good humoured match in the summer sunshine.

 

A win for Chester against Bury
in the first round of the Longman Cup 2017

In the first round of this year’s Longman Cup competition Chester played away against Bury at Whitehead Park on Saturday, 17 June.

In glorious weather (some would say typical of Bury) the morning singles were halved, one game each to Bury and Chester, but the Chester duo of Paul Watson and David Boyd won the doubles. Half way through the afternoon the matches were evenly poised as the Bury players made good use of their bisques but the tide gradually turned such that Chester won all the afternoon singles to clinch the match 6-1, a margin which was somewhat harsh given the excellent play by the Bury team against a Chester team with significantly lower handicaps.

Final score:  Chester 6 v Bury 1

Chester are due to play at home against Bowdon in the next round

A win for Chester against Oxford University
in the first round of the Secretary’s Shield 2017

As a result of Chester’s win last year in the North West Federation’s weekend handicap league, the club was entered automatically in this year’s all England Secretary’s Shield knock-out competition. The first round match was against Oxford University which was played on neutral ground at Nottingham Croquet Club on Saturday, 10 June.

Representing Chester were David Boyd (captain), John Dawson, Robin Tasker and Brian Walton, and the team line-ups were as follows:

Chester	Hcp	Oxford	Hcp
John Dawson	4	Ian Plummer	½
David Boyd	7	Sophie McGlen	11
Robin Tasker	9	Mo Karaminjadrandjbar	20
Brian Walton	18	Jasper Theodor Kauth	24 playing off 20

The morning session saw the two lower handicappers from each club playing the doubles with the higher handicappers playing singles. By lunchtime Oxford had taken a lead of 2 games to 1, Chester having pegged out to win only the doubles. The afternoon session was off to a storming start, when John Dawson, no doubt inspired by his recent appearance at the ‘Inter Counties’, pegged out 26 – 0 in just forty minutes to win his game with Ian Plummer, (fortunately the murmurings about performance enhancing substances soon subsided) and now with the score at all square there was still everything to play for.

The remaining three singles were much more ‘pedestrian’ with two of them lasting until ‘timed-out’. Two of these remaining games were won by Chester and one by Oxford giving a final result as a win for Chester by 4 games to 3.

John Dawson & David Boyd	beat	Ian Plummer & Sophie McGlen	+6 (P) Chester
Jasper T Kauth	beat	Robin Tasker	+5 (T) Oxford
Mo Karaminjadrandjbar	beat	Brian Walton	+1 (T) Oxford
John Dawson	beat	Ian Plummer	+26 (P) Chester
David Boyd	beat	Sophie McGlen	+5 (T) Chester
Mo Karaminjadrandjbar	beat	Robin Tasker	+10 (P) Oxford
Brian Walton	beat	Jasper T Kauth	+1 (T) Chester

Final score:  Chester 4  v  Oxford 3

Chester play against St Albans in the next round.

Chester hosted the North West Millennium Short Lawn Competition on Sunday, 14 May. Sally Slater represented the Chester club, playing in a highly competitive field against nine other players from clubs in the North West Federation. Sally won the trophy in a tense final, holding off the challenge by Gail Moores of Southport to remain undefeated in the four round competition and win her first major title.

Following a successful visit by Dublin-based Carrickmines Croquet Club to Chester last year, Chester were pleased to make a return visit to Ireland over the weekend of 6-7 May. A total of seventeen games were played over the two days in splendid spring weather. Both clubs thoroughly enjoyed the friendly competition, and Chester emerged with a comfortable 11 – 6 triumph, claiming the trophy for a second successive season.

On Saturday of the same weekend, 6 May, Chester played at home against Bury in the Advanced B League and was edged out 2 – 3 on a very grey and chilly day. Jerry Guest was the captain with David Guyton and David Boyd.

Ladies Day at Chester

Not at the racecourse but at Chester Croquet Club where ten players from Fylde, Bury, Bowdon, Southport, Craig-y-don and Chester gathered on a beautiful May morning. Five gentlemen and five ladies (handicaps 3-9) all set for the NW Millennium association croquet short lawn competition. The first two rounds were closely contested but by lunch the ladies were on top with Barbara Young (Bury), Gail Moors (Southport) and Sally Slater (Chester) all having won two matches.

After lunch in the first semi final Gail held her nerve in her concluding break to beat Barbara whilst Sally needed a Rover peel (her first ever) to beat Jack Pattenden in the other semi-final. The final was a bit scrappy with both players affected by tiredness or nerves. Gail used most of her bisques making a 5 hoop break with only 3 balls on the lawn. Sally responded by taking her first ball round using only 3 bisques and after some further skirmishing Sally took her second ball round to make a nervy but effective peg out to win the title. Barbara secured the third place to make it a clean sweep for the ladies.

Overall an excellent day with some very good play on the slick lawns. The benefits of the full bisque format (ie no base as in previous years) were evident in that two thirds of the games finished in peg outs.

Thanks go to David Boyd for managing the event and to Pat Clare and her catering team for providing an excellent lunch and tea.

 

Following a succesful visit by Carrickmines Croquet Club, near Dublin, to Chester last year, Chester were pleased to make a return visit last weekend, 6 – 7 May. A total of seventeen games were played over the two days in splendid spring weather. Both clubs thoroughly enjoyed the friendly competition and Chester emerged as recipients for the second time of the trophy first awarded last year by winning 11 games to 6.

 

 

We are always pleased to welcome new members from absolute beginners to more experienced players. In 2017 we are holding a taster session for newcomers to the game on Saturday, 8 April, from 10 am to 1 pm. Click here for more information or contact our Membership Secretary.