The three amigos (Roger, Simon and Steve) feared the worst at midday on Sunday 15th May. Sheltering under the gazebo, the downpour was now relentless, and according to Roger’s five different weather apps (I exaggerate) it was going to continue until well into the afternoon.

The plan was to get an even mix of experienced members paired up with new members and guests, to run an internal GC tournament during the afternoon.

Would anyone else show? Would the boys have to retire to the bar or resort to a game of AC with puddles?

Then Geraldine arrived on her bike, shortly followed by Pat on foot. A missed call on Steve’s phone – his neighbour Don was on his way but without Linda. Then along strolled Hugh, followed by his friend Nick. The mood was lightening and so, gradually, was the rain.

It looked like we had four doubles teams, though two of the better players would have to play together. Then another message on Steve’s phone. This time his wife Karen said she’d come and play!

So the teams were picked as: Geraldine and Don; Hugh and Nick; Simon and Pat; Steve and Karen; and Roger, with the hope Tom might brave the elements after a heavy roast dinner later in the afternoon. You missed a great afternoon Tom, but you did the right thing, as it was very soggy.

As the guests had a practice on the main lawn, Roger and Steve introduced the game of Molkky Croquet to Pat. Molkky is an established game where players throw a baton shaped piece of wood at twelve numbered “pins”. To win the game a player must score precisely 50 points. If the player knocks down one of the pins, e.g. the pin numbered 6, then he will score 6 points that turn. If he knocks down “Pin 2” down as well he would score only 2 points. The maximum he can score on one turn is 12, either by knocking down “Pin 12”, or by knocking all twelve pins down such that they are all lying on the ground. As the game progresses the pins disperse and so it becomes possible to knock down specific pins. That way it becomes a more skillful game, for example, Pat needed seven points to reach fifty. He managed to knock down the “Pin 7” on its own. Previously he had exceeded fifty, so his score was reduced to 25.

What about the croquet? Well, instead of throwing the chunk of wood, Roger, Steve and Pat used their mallets to knock a croquet ball safely along the ground towards the Molkky pins, thus practicing the accuracy of their croquet shots, and preserving the much hallowed, flat croquet lawn.

Meanwhile, back to the main event. Golf Croquet!! The games progressed and were evenly contested. Each guest (Don, Nick and Karen) were given four extra shots per game (‘bisques’).

Don played admirably given it was only his second time, he listened and carried out Geraldine’s instructions to the letter and sometimes to the inch, plus he managed to keep everyone abreast of the West Ham v Man City game. One-nil, Bowen. Two-nil, think it was Bowen again. Two-one, Grealish grrrr…

Nick talked and produced measured performances too, which included a masterfully executed jump shot to great applause and doffing of caps. He would be a great asset as a member but lives down in Hampshire so he has just joined another club who play in a small field. He needs to move up the M3, or lodge with Hugh in the Summer months.

Karen armed with umbrella played some marvellous shots and ran more hoops than her erratic husband. She managed a couple of games then left Steve to play on his own. Likewise Pat played three of his allotted four games partnering Simon.

The scores of matches were as follows:

Hugh/Nick beat Geraldine/Don 7-4
Simon/Pat beat Steve/Karen 7-5
Roger beat Hugh/Nick 7-5
Geraldine/Don beat Simon/Pat 7-5
Simon/Pat beat Hugh/Nick 7-5
Roger beat Steve/Karen 7-4
Hugh/Nick beat Steve 7-3
Roger beat Geraldine/Don 7-6 (Golden Hoop)
Steve beat Geraldine/Don 7-5

So, one game left. Roger on six points with three wins, Simon (and Pat) sharing second with Hugh/Nick on 4 points, with two wins each…

Simon beat Roger 7-4…

…which meant, they were tied on six points. However, hoop difference decided the victors.

Simon and Pat won the tournament, scoring 26 hoops against 21 hoops. Roger was runner-up with 25 hoops against 22 hoops.

And as the winner walked from the lawn, the sun started to shine at last.  It was nearly 7pm by this time, the Baird’s were closing the bar, the milk had run dry, and Hugh had run off with the remainder of Don’s generous gift of Pannetone. So we all went home, after a most enjoyable day. We plan to do it again perhaps in July? We will let you know. It was introduced to encourage new members to integrate with us seasoned pros, so we will have to make sure other commitments (and the weather) do not prevent that from happening next time.

Who knew GC could be so much fun?

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!

Every match was won 2-1 in games. Roger S was the most dependable, and managed some big wins in the singles, as did Simon, though the one singles he did lose (to an extremely good player), Roger D and Steve managed to sneak a close victory in the doubles at Merton. It is with no doubt we won because Simon and Roger S have improved faster than their handicaps. We may not have that luxury next year as the B League rules stipulate the aggregated total of the four players’ handicaps must be 48 or more: Roger D on 9 (and rising); Steve on 12 (and rising!); Roger S and Simon both on 14 (plummeting rapidly). Let’s hope Tom, Bob and perhaps Hugh or a new player (George?) can play more next year. Perhaps we should try for the A League!!!!????

The same four players competed in the SECF’s Golf Croquet Handicap League East for the first time and performed very well, winning two and losing two matches. Here is the long table of results. As with the AC league, we only play a small selection of the teams competing, and this changes year on year.

Roger D had inherited a low handicap of 5 so it was tricky for him to compete in the singles matches but I think he thoroughly enjoyed himself and was very pleased the club could manage so well at a version of the game not traditionally played with any seriousness (up until now). Roger S, Steve and Simon all played off 7, which we reckon is about fair for our ability and knowledge of the game thus far. Roger S claims its helped him improve his AC game with improved hit-ins, hoop running and rushes (in GC, that’s getting the opponents ball away as far as possible), whereas Steve states otherwise! A knack of prodding at the ball to leave it in the jaws of the hoop rather than “silky smooth” and through to win the point!

Above all, Golf croquet is far more sociable and was played in great spirit against some lovely people from other clubs. Far less competitive and less needle than AC! It makes a refreshing contrast but AC is still the game for the purist (in my opinion anyway!)

I leave you with the B League trophy glistening in the warm September evening sun.

We had a most enjoyable outing to the delightful Merton Croquet Club on Friday 13th August.

Roger D and Steve played a doubles match in the morning against Carolyn and Lavinia. As the higher handicapper, Lavinia got started first using several bisques and made good progress. Then Steve had a chance and set up a four ball break with some great positional shots then proceeded round to Two-back without much problem, save a couple of blobs at hoops, remedied with bisques. Carolyn and Roger also made good progress, and the game was extremely close in scores. Steve tensed up and played Roger’s ball by mistake but Merton could not capitalise. He then nervously tried to use the remaining half bisque, in order to separate Merton’s balls, but missed a sitter! The Edney jab was back… grrrrrrr… Roger did a marvellous three ball break to get round to 4-back, and Carolyn displayed some canny hoop running to move to Rover. Finally, at 19-18 to Ember, Steve had the chance to make the game safe having returned to form to set up a hoop run at Penultimate only for the “jab” to return as he took on the hoop. Luckily, Lavinia had too much to do to achieve the equalising hoop after the time bell rang, and Ember were one-up. 19-18 it remained.

We then had a jolly good lunch under a Gazebo next to the lawn.

In the afternoon, Simon (14 handicap) played Julie (9), and Roger S (14) played Colin (12). As the author of this post left well before the conclusion of either game, here are the first-hand accounts of the players themselves:

Simon wrote: “My opponent, Julie, nine handicap, knew what she was doing: ran 10 hoops using one of her 3 bisques. I ran 11 hoops using 4 of my eight. She then ran 12 hoops using her remaining 2 bisques. I then ran 12 hoops using my remaining four bisques.  I fluffed a shot which gave her a chance to run the remaining 2 hoops with yellow and then peg out, which she almost did, but fluffed the pegging.  So I again had a chance but my split roll from corner four wasn’t quite good enough to secure the necessary hit-in for me to finish off the remaining 3 points required.  So Julie then had a simple peg out to secure her victory.  We had 30 minutes left on the clock.”

Roger S told me: “I used 2 bisques in my first turn to get to rover and split the balls up into the 4 corners. Colin just joined up and kept the innings declining to use any bisque and playing safe and cleverly to make progress 1 or 2 hoops at a time. He used the odd bisque to get out of trouble. During this time I made 2  attempts at making another big break but both failed leaving me on 9 with only 2 left and Colin with 4 or 5. I decided to be cautious and make him work to catch up and hopefully use his bisques in the process. Eventually  he had a small break to take his brown to peg but finished his bisques in doing so and left the balls in playable positions.  This gave me the confidence and opportunity to go for peg using a bisque to set up. Using my other bisque I was also able to peel my other ball through rover also. Blocked by the hoop  from safely pegging out and with all the balls in the centre of the lawn I was able to clear his green and peg out his brown to make it very difficult for him to catch up and leaving me set up to peg out assuming he didn’t hit in – which he didn’t. Game over with about 15 mins to spare.”

Thank you John McEnroe, thanks Sue… well done Novak, but we will take it from here! The event of the year was finally upon us, a friendly fixture versus All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet, at croquet!

Okay, so we didn’t play on the hallowed turf of Centre Court, not even Court One. Alright, so it wasn’t even an outside court but it was a converted tennis court… two in fact.

How did this all come about? Well, like it or not, it pays to have connections and Simon’s daughter works at the AELTC. So a big thank you to Kate for organising this for us!

We played six games of doubles in the morning. Ember won 4-2 overall. Their team included a former UK number one tennis player, a former MP and a recently retired TV commentator.

Once we’d got that out of the way, we trundled over to HQ and sat down for silver service lunch. The Beef Stroganoff was to die for, darling! Anyway, once that was done, off we trotted round Centre Court, pitch side and up close to the Royal Box. Pictures of us next to the main trophies (so didn’t get to take it home with you, Novak?) Fabulous!

It was equally fabulous to have much needed support for the team. Malcolm and Jenny Baird provided the photos and the oohs and aahs respectively. Also, it was great to welcome back Jenny Kirkman, social member and widow of the late Roger Kirkman, who helped start Croquet at Ember back in 1989. Thank you so much for coming along!

We talked about a return match at Ember sometime soon… followed by a tour of our resplendent Croquet Pavilion, steeped in history and myth. Hoorah!