OKAY CROQUET
By Philip DeGlanville
Here in Bath, as in most croquet clubs up and down the country where both AC and GC are played, there is a certain amount of misinformation about both codes doing the rounds amongst some members. Thus AC is regarded by a few GC players, erroneously of course, as ‘too difficult, boring and unsociable’, while GC may be seen by some AC players as ‘too easy, boring and overly sociable’. We suspect that they may not know what they are missing! We are fortunate in having several regular AC players who also enjoy GC, and sometimes play it competitively with considerable success, and we have a smaller number who mainly identify as GC players but who help out quite often by playing in Short Croquet teams, so the divisions here are by no means rigid. However they do seem to be fairly entrenched amongst a few members. In an attempt to help break down the barriers between the two codes, one of our (mainly) AC playing members has devised a new hybrid version of croquet which, for want of a better name, he calls “Okay Croquet”. 24 of us Bath members played it in a tournament which Peter organised this last weekend, and to his great surprise and delight, it went down extremely well. The game is played as alternate stroke doubles, on a full lawn, round six hoops and the peg, and is limited to 40 minutes. Each pairing consisted of an AC player and a GC player, and part of the fun was playing with, and thus getting to know, a club member who up to then may have been a relative stranger. The first three hoops are played according to normal GC rules, but AC rules take over as soon as H3 is run. The person who runs this hoop then plays the continuation shot as the first of 10 strokes, which they alternate with their partner, and between them they attempt to run as many of the remaining three hoops in order (with both balls if they can) and to then peg out either of their Rover balls, all in the time available. They score one point for each hoop run, and one for the peg out, so the maximum score available to any pairing is 10. Once the pair have taken their turn of up to 10 strokes, their opponents take over trying to make as many hoops as possible, commencing at hoop 4 with their set of up to 10 strokes, and so on. Clips are used to identify which hoop is to be played next and with which ball. We played four rounds in an afternoon, with a picnic tea-break in the middle, and for each round the pairings and the lawns changed, whilst each player’s score accumulated. The overall winner on the day was Amanda May, a GC player whose handicap is 10. She scored a remarkable 23 points alongside her four AC partners and won a bottle of wine! The general consensus afterwards was that this was good fun, and that it will definitely become an annual event at Bath Croquet!
www.croquetengland.org.uk | 9
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