Following the prolonged sunny and dry weather with peak daytime temperatures repeatedly exceeding 30° C, croquet clubs across the country are now finding themselves playing on lawns which have managed to stay recognisably green or those, like Chester, which are parched and brown. And what a difference it makes to play.
On Wednesday, 15 July, the Chester Chariots team of Garry Greenwood, Mark Lloyd and Sarah Clements travelled to play Bowdon in a NW Federation level play golf croquet league match.
Bowdon fielded a strong team consisting of Welsh international player, Angharrad Walters, plus Sandra Cornes and Nigel Matthews.
The weather was good and the lawns a lot greener than at Chester so the ball ran a lot slower.
At lunchtime Bowdon were winning comfortably and this continued through the day and although Sarah Clements managed to get four wins in total the final score was 13 games (117 hoops) for Bowdon to Chester’s 5 games and 82 hoops.
As usual Bowdon were very hospitable and the games played in a friendly manner with the added bonus of a magnum ice cream given by Bowdon to each of the Chester players. Thank you.
On Tuesday, 28 July, the Chester team of David Boyd, Rick Davies, Sally Slater and Robin Tasker travelled to Coronation Park at Bury to play the second round in the national Longman Cup association croquet handicap competition. The team were re-introduced to the novelty of playing on green grass and found the experience mysteriously difficult with take-offs and hoop approach shots falling alarmingly short.
Lunch was reached with Chester 0-3 down although the doubles and one singles game were close calls, Chester going down by a couple of hoops on both games. Bisques, a very accomplished opponent and to an extent the slow paced court mentality the other singles games rapidly completed.
The afternoon session saw little improvement although Rick played extremely well to record our only victory of the day. And so for Chester the 2026 Longman Cup journey ended with Bury thoroughly deserving their 6-1 victory.
On the following day, Wednesday, 29 July, there was a home match against Bowdon in the new NW Federation One Ball League. After their reintroduction to grass at Bury the day before, Rick Davies and Robin Tasker joined with Doreen Curtis to play on the unpredictable straw and speed of Chester’s lawns.
It was a wonderfully relaxed day of competitive but friendly croquet played by both sides with a real spirit of enjoyment. Once the Byzantine handicap system of One Ball had been negotiated and the bisque allocations determined, the games commenced.
And, while there were considerable ebbs and flows during games, the majority were decided by one or two hoops with neither side ever more than one game ahead. It was therefore no surprise that with Chester taking the final game, the match score finished all square at 9-all.
So it turns out the authors of the One Ball handicap system did know what they were doing. Or perhaps the challenges of the Chester lawns represents a great leveller!