WHEELCHAIR CROQUET By Mike Li/lewood
wider wheels of the Peterborough chair have not marked or damaged the lawns at all. The wheel width is 8cm and the wheel diameter 61cm. The seat height from the ground is at 45 cm. I have also tried my own personal chair and although it has not damaged the lawns it does make small grooves which do recover a&er a short while. However, this shallow grooving also creates more wheel fric6on and consequently this chair is significantly more 6ring to use. So with this in mind I have begun the process of contac6ng wheelchair manufacturers to see if they will create “quick change” wheels to enable “street” chairs to be easily converted for use on lawns. So far this is a “head against a brick wall” process, as my chair (for example) may be sold in the UK, but it’s made in China. Is there a provable demand for croquet or bowls players? – well, no. For without such chairs being readily available, players can’t play, so there is no demand. A regular Catch‐22. I reported in July’s issue that yes, I can play the necessary strokes for associa6on and golf croquet from the chair. I discovered however that my full‐size mallet is too cumbersome; the handle is too long. So I use the short mallet that has been created by the good control and direc6on with most of the strokes. I struggle with full and half rolls, as ge8ng a comfortable and correct hand posi6on is difficult ‐ especially when factoring in the angle of the mallet head. I have worked out a method of posi6oning the chair so that I posi6on myself in the same place rela6ve to the ball each 6me. I’ve even managed to win one game this season playing other members of the Driffield club. Prac6ce will no doubt help with my game, and I feel I’m back to around Driffield club. It is pictured in the July ar6cle. It measures 67cm tall with a head 21.5 cm long. I’m even ge8ng
Since July 2025 when my story was published in the online Gaze7e, the Driffield club has con6nued its support of me, as has Croquet England, and progress has been made. I have been a wheelchair user since around the end of May, and now as we reach the beginning of September, I’ve had three months or so to get used to using a wheelchair both in normal life when out and about, and also on the croquet lawn. Having visited York Croquet Club both on foot and subsequently as a wheelchair user, I became aware that perhaps not all clubs are set up for those who are not fully ambulant. The club members may be wheelchair‐ friendly, as I have found so far, but the lawn set‐up and building access perhaps are not. This is not too much of a problem for me, as I am allowed to get out of the chair and walk a few steps, hence I could get around the York club if I needed to. Although it has four lawns, they are all on different levels with steps or slopes needing to be nego6ated for access; I appreciate that these problems are barriers to those who cannot readily leave the chairs, but I am lucky that I can. Having experimented with different wheelchairs as described in the July edi6on of the online Gaze7e, I took possession in mid‐June of a wheelchair on loan from the Peterborough club (via Croquet England and other clubs) for transport. I have been using this on the lawn since then. I reported in the last issue that I found the Peterborough chair heavy to use. Since then, it has been adapted by having spacers on the axles that allow be7er grip on the outer hand wheel (which had been hidden by the widening of the main wheel). I’ve also gained more upper body strength, and the combina6on of the two factors now allows me to play and manoeuvre for a whole match, mostly without the need for a pusher. As has been well publicised, we’ve endured the sunniest and driest summer for many years, and the
the same handicap level that I was before May this year. Using the mallet, I line up the head so that the sha& is at the centre of the ball and the head at right angles, this puts the mallet end faces parallel to the direc6on I want to play. I then ensure the wheel is also parallel to the direc6on I want to play, with the rim of the wheel almost touching the mallet head. It sounds complicated but using the tools you have with you in the chair it seems to work. Not quite as easy as you can do with your feet, but you do need a consistent stance. Having solved these issues, we have as a club found issues that are outside the scope of the normal rules. These are the need to mark balls or temporarily remove a hoop in order to play shots. A typical player can adjust their feet to accommodate balls that are in a “hampered” posi6on, such as just to the side of other balls or just beyond and in front of the hoop. On foot, the area of lawn needed to play is just a couple of square feet. The footprint of the wheelchair is much bigger and inflexible. So the club has developed the “Driffield rules”, allowing me (with the opponent’s agreement) to mark balls that restrict the posi6oning of the chair or remove the hoop for the same reason. As the 2025 season draws to a close, I’ve had no response yet from the wheelchair manufacturer or distributor, so that’s an ongoing problem to tackle in the winter. The healing of my foot con6nues, and the podiatry team have referred me to ortho6cs for a bespoke shoe to enable some addi6onal walking. The proviso is I shall s6ll need the wheelchair as well. So although in 2026 I shall be a part‐6me biped, I’ll almost certainly s6ll be playing from the wheelchair.
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