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Chester Runner Up in Secretary’s Shield

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St Albans beat Chester 5-2 in the final of the Secretary’s Shield on Saturday 19th October: match played at Kenilworth.

John Dawson representing the CA presents the Secretary’s Shield to Chris Frost

The Secretary’s Shield Final was held at Kenilworth between St Albans and Chester on 19th October, the final having to be rearranged when the previous fixture had been rained off.  The teams had met two weeks previously in the 3rd/4th play-off in the Longman Cup.

In the morning session Chester’s Brian Walton achieved his Silver Merit award by taking his second ball through all 12 hoops and winning his game but St Albans won the doubles and the second singles match to take a 2-1 lead at lunch.  In the afternoon session all the games were close (including one going to a golden hoop) with St Albans winning 3 of the matches to win the final by a score of 5-2.

John Dawson from the CA committee presented the trophy to Chris Frost the St Albans Captain.

Results (St Albans names first):
Chris Frost (3.5) & Stuart Stafford (16) beat John Dawson (3) & Robin Tasker (5) 26-11;
Heather Bennett (3.5) beat David Boyd 26-22;
Stephen Mills (11) lost to Brian Walton (8) 26-9;
Chris Frost (3.5) beat John Dawson (3) 26-21;
Heather Bennett (3.5) lost to Robin Tasker (5) 20-19T;
Stephen Mills (11) beat David Boyd 26-24;
Stuart Stafford (16) beat Brian Walton (8) 26-17.

St Albans team with the Secretary’s Shield

Watch the Best of North West Croquet

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Watch the best of the North West
Forget the rugby, forget the weekend shopping watch the best of the North West as Bowdon and Chester take on the best of the South East at sunny Surbiton for fame and fortune in the AC Mary Rose and Longman trophies this weekend . Bring http://www.surbitoncroquet.org.uk/ up on your computers to watch your local heroes

Eugene has been off on holiday and so is unable to bring his equipment to Surbiton to stream the finals this weekend.
The Surbiton Web-cams will however be on-line.  They can be accessed through the club website http://www.surbitoncroquet.org.uk/
There are 3 separate live streams:
Lawn 1 – which will be used for the Mary Rose final on Saturday and the Interclub final on SundayLawn 2 – which will be used for the Mary Rose final on Saturday and the Interclub final on SundayLawn 3 – which will be used for the Longmann semi-final on Saturday and final on Sunday.
Play in the Longman & Mary Rose is scheduled to start at 09:30 whilst the Interclub will start at 10:30.

The webcams are part of the clubs CCTV security system (although they are pointed at lawns rather than areas to protect the clubhouse and equipment sheds).
The original one was put up primarily to enable members to see the state of the lawns (after say heavy rain) and to see if anyone else is at the club for those that don’t like being the only person there.
They are available 24/7 through a streaming service that offers a ‘free’ package but with the restriction that the video is not full HD, there is no sound and the viewer needs to ‘reclick’ play every few minutes to keep the stream playing.
It is therefore not as good as a specific event streaming service through something like U-Tube that Eugene Chang uses for his broadcasts.

Over 1500 people try Croquet

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BBC CountryfileLive at Castle Howard August 2019

Adam Henson enjoying Croquet at Castle Howard

A group of 50 enthusiastic croquet players drawn mostly from the Yorkshire Federation went to the new CountryfileLive at Castle Howard to give visitors to the 4 day event the opportunity to ” give croquet a go”. Two small courts were set up on the lawns with the magnificent house in the background and over 1500 tried their hand at running hoops with some expert guidance. All of the visitors seemed to enjoy it ; any serious interest was captured and links are being made to clubs for follow up.

John Dawson coaches Adam Henson through the hoop

The weather was variable and as the show lasted from 9-00 to 6 pm on each day. The CA volunteers worked hard with some time off to enjoy the rest of the show themselves.

Matt Baker and Anita Rani try Croquet with Derek Knight

It is always difficult to assess the long term impact of this sort of activity but 1500 is a “serious” number of players and there is no doubt that the team of volunteers raised the public profile of croquet amongst the tens of thousand visitors to the show. As a result of the relationships built up at Blenheim the BBC Countryfile Live stars turned up en masse for an early morning publicity shoot and Matt Baker , Ellie Harrison and Adam Henson came back to hone their croquet skills watched by many of their fans. Some activities were shot on camera but we shall have to wait to see if any of the footage makes it to the Sunday night show.

BBC Countryfile Presenters try Croquet at Castle Howard

A big “thank you” to all the volunteers, to Anna Giraud for managing the recruitment and deployment of the teams, to Derek Knight ( and Anna) for setting up and dismantling the site, to the York and Beverley clubs for the loan of equipment .

Yorkshire members hosting Croquet at Castle Howard

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