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Despite a very hot sunny day (over 30 degrees!) on Tuesday 26 May, the High Wycombe SCF GC Doubles pairs of Captain Nigel Moore and Keith Toovey, Sally Rogers and Richard Holroyd were able to play some serious croquet when Wingrave came to town. Each match had close competitive starts, even though the final score (8-0 to HW) was a firm victory to start the home team's 2026 campaign. Lunch and other refreshments were taken throughout the day in the shady surroundings of our clubhouse and a resplendent temporary gazebo on trial from Richard. The day finished with tales of finger wagging (?!), fruity cake, large glasses of squash and big mugs of tea! The Wingrave team were a pleasure to host. Nigel Moore 
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 I am sorry that the roll up today Friday could not take place. HWCC was playing in the second round of the national GC Inter-Club Tier 3 'Bowl' competition, meeting a team from Leighton Linslade. The fixture was arranged a long time ago but I omitted to warn you all that the roll-up had had to be cancelled to make room for the match. To those of you who arrived and had to turn back, I apologise and will try to do better in future.
The good news is that we won! Congratulations to Mark Higgins, Richard Coward, Chris Webbley and James Gamon, who brought home a substantial 5-2 victory. Commiserations to our visitors who played well and helped everyone enjoy a delightful day of sunshine and competition. We next meet Ashbury or Branston in the quarter-finals. Text by Chris Webbley Photo by Mark Higgins Ahead of this summer's SCF Advantage GC League matches, both of our squads -- the Kites and the Kestrels -- have benefitted from some carefully designed and expertly-delivered team coaching. Lead coaches Ian Shore and Raouf Allim, supported by Patricia Mulcahy and Chris Webbley, ran four weekly sessions covering the key elements of play: Positioning, Clearing and Hoop Running. Each two-hour session used a STAR coaching model, helping people improve their Skills, Tactics, mental Approach and understanding of the relevant Rules. As you can see from the photos, the coaching was very practical and almost all took place out on the lawns. The lessons learned could then be applied directly in an hour of practice games, with observation and further coaching. Reminder notes of the key points were sent to people, who had also received a booklet covering practice exercises on which to log their own progress. This coaching will, we hope, help people not only improve their existing skills, tactics, approach and awareness of rules in SCF League matches but also enhance their enjoyment of competitive team play. Participants have expressed warm thanks to Ian, Raouf, Patricia and Chris for their expertise, care and time given to this initiative. Chris Webbley Four members of the HW Kites GC Advantage squad got the opportunity to use their recent coaching when they played the opening match in their season. Delightful players from Winchester held things level by lunchtime at 4-4, but the Kites showed their skills in the afternoon, taking the third round 4-0 and the fourth 3-1, with the final score 11-5. Congratulations to Geoff Johnson, Keith Toovey, Nigel Moore and Richard Coward. And thanks to Ian Shore and Raoud Allim for their coaching sessions, which everyone agreed had made a difference. Chris Webbley  A tense moment for Nigel and his opponent Anne at Hoop 13. The death has recently been announced of Pauline Spiller. Pauline will be remembered by many of the older members of the club. She worked for Wycombe District Council. In fact it was the Sports department who arranged for the Croquet Club to be formed at Bassetsbury. Pauline was not a founder member of HWCC, but did join later and held various positions. She played for the Kites in the SCF League, always committed to contributing her best to the team. It was also a pleasure to join Pauline with other club members at the public 'come and try croquet' days held at Hughenden Manor. David Gantzel and Chris Webbley  Our team of Keith Toovey, Martin Dock, Nigel Moore and Richard Coward played Newport in the opening round of this national inter-club competition yesterday. They faced a challenging difference in handicap total (18 to 11) and it was not a surprise that Newport won. But in a best of three format a majority of the matches went to the third game, including one singles match won for HWCC by Richard Coward. No fewer than 12 of the 18 games ended at 7-6 or 7-5. So, to quote Match Captain Martin Dock, "an honourable defeat" indeed. Thanks to the four players for representing HWCC and to Anne and her team at Newport for their hospitality. Chris Webbley, Competitions Manager  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 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! |
