Three awards for the North West at the Croquet Association AGM
At the Croquet Association AGM in October, three CA Awards were presented to Fylde Croquet Club, Ken Cooper and Francois Garcia.
Apps Heley Award – Fylde Croquet Club
The Apps Heley Award for improvements to clubs with three or four lawns was awarded jointly to Fylde CC and West Worthing CC.
Fylde was formed in 1986 and in the last two years has:
– Developed a third lawn from two disused grass tennis courts, using members’ labour;
– Taken on the maintenance of its lawns, again using volunteer labour and funded the purchase of machinery;
– Built a new clubhouse and played a full part in the North West Federation;
– Hosted its first CA Handicap trophy and the international match between the CA and the CA of Ireland;
Lifetime Coaching Award – Ken Cooper of Bowdon CC
Ken has only been the NW Federations Coaching Officer for the last three years and in that time he has totally revolutonised the ‘thinking and active involvement’ of all our Clubs and individual players into the benefits of good progressive, croquet coaching. Ken was charged with the job of changing player’s attitude towards competitive play and thereby help develop the quality of our League Games throughout the NWFCC Region. He set about this in earnest by gathering together several of the Federations other coaches and getting their support to assist him in running courses at the various levels required.
Read further details on the citation in a previous post on 25 March 2013 – read more
Steel Bowl – Francois Garcia of Bowdon CC
Awarded to the most improved female Association Croquet Player in 2012.
Francois started the 2012 season on a handicap of 4 after having had a successful season in 2011 culminating in winning the Bowdon B-level event. In 2012 she decided to concentrate on advanced play. While not winninmg any competitions she reduced her handicap to 2.5 and her Dynamic Grading has increased from 1512 to 1685. She reached the final of the Bowdon B-level event again but had to withdraw because of injury. For the same reason she had to withdraw from the Bowdon B-level weekend tournament. This cut her playing season by 20% which makes her improvement in 2012 even more of an achievement.