Thanks to the efforts of some dedicated members golf croquet has grown from almost nothing to now play a full role in the club’s activity. Golf croquet is, according to the The Croquet Association, “a game with a long history and a recent resurgence of interest at all levels” and “has simpler rules and is more interactive (each turn is just a single stroke), but it requires a similar level of accuracy and tactical awareness”. The club’s dedicated players had the fullest season to date as summarised below (with thanks to Chris Elliott for the words).

HHCC entered the SECF GC H East League (scroll to the bottom of this SECF page for the results). For the second year running, and, like last year, HHCC won 1 game out of 4 but were in winnable positions in all the matches – hopefully the killing edge to convert close matches into wins will be found next season. The opponents were Sydenham, Bromley, Ealing and Cheam, with the one home match being the solitary win! This may possibly be due to the prohibition of “jump shots” at HHCC, which slightly irked Ealing. It was great to see eight different players take part in “league matches” this season.

In addition to the league matches, there were three friendly matches: home and away against Watford plus a visit to the AELT&C Club at Wimbledon where we were entertained most royally by our most hospitable hosts, but lost the match. In addition to the league players, three additional members were able to take part.

The final event of the season was an invitation to a 25th anniversary occasion at Enfield Croquet Club with local clubs from Finchley, Barnet and ourselves. The event majored on GC, but there was an AC element included, and our team who made a good account of themselves, with one win, one draw and one loss in the round robin format. (See image below.)

The Monday evening “roll up” open evening for GC has been very well attended, but there have been far fewer “ladder matches” played this year. There may be a case for replacing it with a knockout competition as currently run in AC. Onwards to 2024!