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Forget the Fishes at Chester Croquet Club

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Still Playing at Chester

The talk at most croquet clubs is of angled hoop running and triple peels but at Chester in the autumn a croquet player’s fancy lightly turns turns to thoughts of loaves. After a couple of quick games of golf croquet to work up an appetite it’s straight into the clubhouse where the merits of rye and sunflower seeds or sour dough toast are hotly contested. Aided by a major investment in a toaster and sunny weather the croquet season has been extended to the end of November. This simple incentive has kept the members playing for longer than usual. ” I don’t know which I enjoy most” said one player ” running a hoop from twenty yards or Frank’s home-made marmalade on hot sour dough toast” ( They get better with the telling!)

Chester MP has a go at Croquet

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Chester M.P. Chris Matheson enjoyed a Croquet event at Chester Croquet Club

Chester MP Chris Matheson with members of Chester Croquet Club (photo Pat Clare)
Chris Matheson M.P. tries Croquet on the Chester Lawns (photo Pat Clare)

Chester MP, Chris Matheson, accompanied by local councillor, Richard Beacham, made a visit to Chester Croquet Club during one of their club days and tried his hand at croquet. The main purpose of the visit was to update him on the issues associated with croquet being played in a public park in his constituency but it had the additional benefit of briefing him about the Croquet Association’s national role in the context of his membership of the House of Commons Select Committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Chester Secretary John Dawson presents a Chester Cup to Chris Matheson M.P. (photo Pat Clare)

On a sunny but blustery autumnal day he was impressed by the numbers and obvious enjoyment of the members playing and gained an understanding of the strong league structure for all levels of play across the North West. He quickly grasped the competitive dimensions of the sport and its social and health benefits for players. The local issues are to be followed up with council representatives and Mr Matheson offered to meet with national officials of the CA at the Houses of Parliament to discuss the future needs of croquet across the country.

 

Croquet Raises Profile at National Show

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STOP PRESS: Spotted by John Dawson (Chester) – Croquet did make it onto TV at CountryfileLive for 15 seconds for BBC Oxford. Not the 15 minutes Andy Warhol promised but probably the first time for several years that croquet has been on UK TV

See for yourself – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsLHebayWTY

CROQUET MAKES ITS DEBUT AT “COUNTRYFILELIVE”

“CountryfileLive” is an annual show (spun off from BBC TV’s Countryfile) held over 4 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 received 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 persuaded 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 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.

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