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Outstanding Win for Bury’s Young Croquet Players.

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Association Croquet FULL LAWN — ALL ENGLAND AREA FINAL –    31stAugust – 1stSeptember 2019 at Whitehead Park Bury.

Five northern Croquet Clubs were represented in this Association Croquet Full Lawns Tournament – Bury, Bowdon, Chester, Pendle and Penrith.

Saturday’s opening games set the scene for the whole week-end with the two youngest players coming into the event never having previously played in full lawn tournament. Both are members of Bury Croquet Club – Jack Good and Richard Leach. 

Previously they had only competed at Short Lawn croquet which meant that they were each entitled to have opening Handicaps of 24 and they both took full advantage of this by playing some outstanding quality croquet. 

13 years old Jack Good is already being tipped for stardom and has been recognised by The Croquet Association as being one of the best new young players in the country. He quickly demonstrated his skills to the joy of all the spectators by performing some outstanding shots :- hitting in at 20 yards, then later at 35 yards to set up perfect four ball breaks with each ball. His opponent was John Dawson from Chester, a very experienced player with an handicap of 2.5 but he had little chance and could only watch as Jack went on to win the game 26 – 0. 

This set the set the trend for the week-end with Jack winning 5 out of 5 of his match’s.

Meanwhile Richard Leach was the only player who came anywhere near threatening Jack’s top spot by taking him to within 2 points in their match against each other. Richard was certainly a worthy joint 2nd placed runner -up with John Dawson – each having won 3 games out of 5.

During the Tournament Jack and Richard both qualified to Receive a Bronze Merit Award for running 10 or more hoops in one break –  a tremendous achievement for two young players in their first Full Lawn AC Tournament.

Unfortunately due to prior commitments Richard is unavailable to go to the Final, so it will be Jack Good  and John Dawson who are eligible to enter the final next week.

David Barrett – Tournament Handicapper &  Joint Manager   

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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