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Anyone who says that Croquet lacks excitement (a) does not understand Croquet and (b) should have been at High Wycombe for the annual friendly with Ealing on Tuesday. This fixture commemorates Ealing's kind hospitality when HWCC were between homes some years ago. The trophy is The Lloyd Pratt Mallett, which once belonged to an infamous (no, really) player who actually had no connection with either Ealing or High Wycombe. Such are traditions! At lunchtime, High Wycombe were 3-1 up with good prospects for taking back the mallet after two years. But by mid afternoon things had changed, Ealing were in the lead, and any chance of a draw depended on the last match. Which Mark Higgins and Nigel Moore duly won in the third game of three against Ealing's A&B players. So, on to a shootout at the peg from the East boundary to decide the winner of the day. Each team's eight players took their turn, after which the score was still level at 2-2. Round 2: each captain has chosen their best four players...High Wycombe goes first...a hit! All the pressure is now on Ealing to get a hit: no...no...no...NO!! High Wycombe win the match and have the indescribable pleasure of hosting the Lloyd-Pratt Mallet for the year. Some people say, "It's not the taking part, it's the winning". (Think about that). But although it was nice to win, it was a great day to take part. Ealing have written to thank us for our hospitality, led by Alan Clark who provided a superb buffet lunch and reinforced by Mark Higgins who turned up very early to set up. Chris Webbley
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The Club’s reputation for innovation is about to be boosted still further. We have agreed to take a leading role in a trial of use of AI (‘Artificial Intelligence’) to help with the administration of croquet.
The trial has been approved by the SCF (Southern Croquet Federation) and Croquet England (CqE). It starts from today and will run until the end of September, after which the results and lessons learned will be reviewed. A review panel will be drawn from our Club, SCF and CqE and their report will be submitted to CqE and SCF in time for the relevant committees to decide how to proceed. Several AI ‘models’ were evaluated, including ChatGPT from OpenAI, Claude from Anthropic and Gemini from Google. HWCC already uses Google for our G-Drive folders and files, and we therefore argued for Gemini to be the trial model. This has been agreed. Steve Morton our IT specialist will be helping users get their heads around how to use Gemini. Recent articles in The Economist and The Guardian have emphasised the value of testing out AI by applying it to well-understood tasks. For croquet, this obviously includes managing tournament entries, recording results, maintaining membership lists etc. But HWCC is determined to go further. So, the Committee has decided to trial the following:
All questions arising should be addressed to https://gemini.google.com because the Webnews Manager is sulking. Chris Webbley Webnews Manager (suspended) The first of the new evening Club Roll Up sessions will be launched on Wednesday 29th April, from 6.00pm until the light begins to fade. It will use both courts, ideally with one for AC and the other GC. Members will be able to swap between the two codes, but this will be open to preferences during the evening. It might be that both courts are used for a single code for part of the evening, if participants wish.
Members can also enjoy soft refreshments or even a beer or glass of wine (from our ‘well’ stocked fridge) as part of the social nature of the evening. Please note individuals will need to pay for beer and wine. Once we get more established, we can look towards perhaps firing up the club Weber BBQ and people can bring food to BBQ (self help!). I’m going to set up the evenings initially, although I expect these to become self-managing as much as existing Roll Ups. Please would members who are interested in attending email me: [email protected] – this way I can ascertain likely numbers. Very much look forward to these croquet evenings over the coming months of fine summer weather... Nigel Moore (m: 07401 314983) A CAUTIONARY TALE For want of a clip, a hoop was lost For want of a hoop, a game was lost For want of a game, a match was lost For want of a match, a League was lost For want of a League, a club was lost For want of a club, a Federation was lost For want of a Federation, an Association was lost For want of an Association, a sport was lost… …and all for the want of a single clip! The last of the club’s winter AC tournaments took place on Sunday 15th March and was a brand-new format (for us): a doubles tournament but one in which players had a new partner each game.
As a doubles tournament, we had capacity for more players than usual and a field of 12 - all club members - was assembled. Players were divided into two groups by handicap, and high-bisquers were paired with low-bisquers to play handicap doubles. Time limits of 90 minutes meant that there should be time for five games each (but more of that later). The plan was that players should have a different partner for each game, and should only play each individual opponent once. Manager Mike Porter had drawn up a spreadsheet to magically ensure this would happen… only for it to transpire at lunchtime that Richard Coward was scheduled to play Heather Hanshaw in all five games! Back to Excel school… (Oh, Mike, I DO sympathise! Chris Webbley, GC Competition Manager) On to the croquet - in the morning sunshine, we had some excitingly close games, with two of the first round matches being decided by a single point, including one dramatic comeback after time had been called. After two rounds, Mike Porter was the only low-handicapper to have won both games while Neil George and Mike West were unbeaten among the high-handicappers. After a convivial lunch in a crowded clubhouse, Mike P and Neil continued their unbeaten runs in the third game, and Neil teamed up with Gabriel Furse to beat Mike P and Kevin Ward in round 4. At this point, the heavens had opened and by common agreement the tournament was brought to an early close. Mike P and Neil were declared the winners of their respective groups, with Alan Clark and Mike W taking the runners-up spots. Despite the rain and the early finish, everyone enjoyed the format. As one participant put it, “The good thing is that you’re not stuck with the same partner for more than one game”! Thanks to everyone for playing… and particular thanks to Patricia Mulcahy, who provided wonderful home-made cake and biscuits!  Many of us will have memories of Geoff, a kind, good-humoured stalwart of the club for many years. I clearly still remember the moment when, playing against him, I took position knowing that it would be quite impossible for his next ball to run the hoop from such an angle. But Geoff being Geoff, he took his stance, ran the hoop perfectly and finished with one of his trademark grins, with which I could only join in. And, of course, he then explained the shot to help me improve my game.
No wonder that Geoff won the club's Unsung Hero Award in 2021 as shown in the picture. The Committee are inviting you to share your memories of Geoff using the Comments button below or by emailing me [email protected]. These will be gathered and sent to his daughters. Thank you, and best wishes, Chris It may not feel like it just yet, but summer will be here before too long. So, take a moment to consider all the opportunities that HWCC offers for those longer, warmer days. In addition to the weekly roll-ups, some with coaching attached, and plenty of free lawn space available for fellow members to book and play, many other things are being organised ready to start in April.
In both AC and GC, High Wycombe will be competing in several national inter-club competitions. Names to conjure with: The Mary Rose, The Longmans, the Murphy Shield and the curiously-named Bowl. Closer to home, our membership of the Southern Croquet Federation SCF means that we compete in several leagues for players of different standards, level play and handicap / advantage, singles and doubles. Then there are the Friendlies, matches with clubs that are ... well... Friendly. Planning enough travel for the summer anyway and want to play at home? No worries. Look out for the six different internal summer competitions: EV (= 'event') 1, 2 and 3 for AC, EV 4, 5 and 6 for GC that will be advertised in March. You can enter for as many as you wish (though please be realistic about quite how much time you want to devote to Croquet, wonderful sport though it is!) High handicap player? Enter the 1-day tournaments at the end of the summer for GC or AC. Not to mention our own AC and GC summer open tournaments, the GC Challenge competition that may be operating again this year, One-Ball, Short Croquet, Come & Try It CATI events where friendly support from existing members will help newbies get into the game... Will summer be long enough? Whatever you decide to do, at whatever level and with whatever commitment to your own development, please enjoy! Chris Webbley GC Competition Manager The latest instalment in the AC winter tournament series was a short croquet day held on 17th January. One advantage of short croquet is that it allows more players to play on a given day, and this time we had ten - mostly High Wycombe members, but also visitors from St Albans and Bath.
The day got off to an inauspicious start, with rain bucketing down while we set up the lawns, and conditions were a bit squelchy all day. Mike West had just decided that he wasn’t going to risk playing in such conditions while he was recovering from a cold, when the rain eased off and he relented. Short croquet games are just that – short – and while we had set a 75-minute time limit, only two of the 29 games played were decided on time. Everyone played at least five games, and two of us managed to fit in seven. The early front-runners were Mike West and Richard Peperell who each won their first two games, but Mike defeated Richard 14-0 in the third game to take a commanding lead in the tournament. Also in contention was Gabriel Furse, who won two of his first three games despite a recent handicap reduction which meant that he had to complete one mandatory peel in each game. However, he took himself out of contention during his fourth game… leading comfortably against Mike Porter, he was just about to peg out when he inexplicably missed a roquet of a few inches. Mike pounced on the opportunity and came back to win 14-12. Ultimately, it was Mike West who saw off all his challengers to win the day with a 5/5 record. An excellent runner-up spot was claimed by Heather Bennett (St Albans) who also won 5 games but lost 2. We are very lucky as a club to be able to host these events throughout the winter. Despite the early rain, the lawns drained well and provided a high quality playing surface throughout. Other than a few complaints of wet feet, all agreed the day was a great success! Mike Porter Short croquet (SC) is a variant of Association Croquet played on half-sized lawns. The shorter distances make it ideal for relative newcomers to the game, and the quick games make it ideal for a one-day tournament. All the games are handicap play, and the strongest players have the additional challenge of having to complete one or more peels on their partner ball, putting (for example) red through its hoops while playing yellow. Few if any of Wycombe’s members had played SC, so there was a distinct buzz of anticipation at our inaugural SC tournament on a pleasant autumn day in late November. Joining the seven locals was a guest from Winchester, Roger Barnacle. The short distances and generous hoops made for some ambitious play. In his first game, Richard Peperell scored two hoops on his first turn in beating Richard Coward, while Mike Porter successfully negotiated his two mandatory peels to beat Heather Hanshaw. Games came thick and fast, and by the end of the day most of the players had played six games; David Cotton went one better and fitted in games against all seven opponents. Even better, he won six of those seven games and was rightly crowned our inaugural SC champion. All agreed that our first foray into SC had been a great success, and we’ve already arranged another tournament for Saturday 17th January. There are still places available if anyone wants to give it a go! Mike Porter  The players: (L to R) Mike Porter, Roger Barnacle, Gabriel Furse, Heather Hanshaw, David Cotton, Richard Peperell, Richard Coward and Geoff Johnson  The lawns at 12.00 Friday 2 January. Picture by Russell |
