THE LAWNS MANAGER
Having taken up croquet in 2023, somehow, at the start of 2024, with zero knowledge of mowers or grass, other than a mossy patch at the back of my house, I became “The Lawns Manager”. It must be true as page 6 of Enfield CC handbook states “Colin Carver is the Lawns Manager”. The club had just celebrated its 30th anniversary, so it must just be a matter of doing the same as in all those previous years. Oh, if only life was that simple! Evidently the Council used to look after the lawns until a few years ago, and the second-hand mowers the club acquired since had been causing all sorts of anguish the previous year. Everyone I spoke to had very different ideas and opinions on what needed to be done and how to do it. With the lawns closed for the winter and the April season start rapidly approaching, a small working party was arranged to cut the grass. One cylinder mower failed to start, the other skidded and didn’t cut, so to make some progress we resorted to the rotary mower normally only used for the perimeter areas. Back to the drawing board. After a few hours on YouTube and with the assistance of the brother-in-law, a car expert, we arrived at the club with tools, spark plugs, filters, oil and a fantastic oil suction pump. Now with a knowledge of a mower being “on cut” and cut height the two cylinder mowers were converted into cutting superstars, and the grass transformed into three croquet lawns. Subsequently, a number of members had their arms twisted and a twice- weekly mowing rota was set up for the season. I now just needed to keep the mowers running and correctly set, using my newfound knowledge. If only!! There is something called the monthly treatments, using various feeds, moss killer, weed treatments, spiking machine etc. Evidently we’d started using the Duncan Hector system, so an order was placed and supplies duly arrived and lawn dosing started. Oh, also white lining, hoop setting and moving (thank you Nigel), plus the fox damage, crows pecking and squirrels burying their nuts. Are jump shots allowed, which lawn should we be using, what about some Short Croquet on half lawns? The list was rapidly growing. The regular “I blame the lawns manager” comments when a ball happened to deviate even slightly from its desired direction started to get a bit annoying. However, as the season progressed there was the occasional “The lawns look good today, Colin” and when a visiting team said the lawns were playing better than they could ever remember, all the time and effort began to seem worthwhile. Having entered the club’s All-England AC event, to make up the numbers, somehow I became the club’s representative. So, it was off to a Cheltenham high-bisque tournament to try
and learn how to play this AC game. Then on to Surbiton for the regional round of the All-England, then to Blewbury for the final. This together with entering various GC C and B- level events and inter-club matches allowed me to visit some 15 clubs during 2024 and 2025. Every club’s lawns seemed to have their own unique character, and quite a few had even more “character” than ours. However, visiting other clubs enabled me to ask and learn how they managed to look after their lawns. With regular mowing and treatments our grass was getting much better, and we even managed to keep a lawn open over the winter, but then in 2025 drought struck. To water or not to water, that was the question? Advice seemed to favour not water unless the grass turned totally brown. After a few weeks of looking straw-like, and members experiencing the rare phenomena of super-fast Enfield lawns, I decided maybe it was time to water. Problem was if you used enough hose to reach the far corner the pressure reduced and the sprinkler wouldn’t rotate. After watering all day only an average depth of 2mm was applied – conclusion, not worth the effort. I could only dream of irrigation systems which could be operated remotely from the comfort of one’s own living room. I am keen to try and improve our lawns, but being on clay I’m led to believe they dry out differently each season. However, I asked the Committee to arrange for a contractor to top- dress the lawns. For various reasons this proved to be more difficult than you could imagine, and so after waiting several months I decided to try it ourselves. Eventually I found a supplier who was willing to attempt delivery of dressing to our residential setting, and a reasonably priced drag mat. So in March 2026 after cutting, scarifying and spiking, a working party of 12 applied 3 tonnes of dressing to one of the lawns
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