Session 1 – held on March 17th 2025.

Goals

What is your goal in croquet?

What do you want to achieve?

Improving at AC requires several steps

• Learn something new
• Practice it until you have achieved ‘unconscious competence’
• Bank it
• Move on to the next thing

Easy croquet

Some croquet strokes are easy; others are not. Try to play easy strokes.

A stroke might be ‘not easy’ for two reasons.

1. It might be technically challenging, e.g. a pass roll from corner 4 sending your ball to hoop 5 and the croqueted ball to hoop 4. (No, I don’t know why you would want to do that either. I was just looking for a really difficult stoke to use as an example.)
2. It might be an easy stroke to play, but it has a low probability of success (e.g. trying to roquet a ball in corner 2 when shooting from corner 1).

The usual way to ensure that a stroke is easy is to play the previous stroke correctly. Think Ahead!

Technique

Grip

Irish (both palms facing away from you)

• Good for touch.
• Bad for being able to make a long backswing.

Solomon (knuckles on both hands facing away from you)

• Good for a long backswing.
• Less good for touch.

• A good balance of backswing and touch.

“Whatever works” (as long as it does work)

All top players have their hands together.

Swing

Let the mallet do the work. You do not need heave hard at the ball. The effort you put into a stroke should be in lifting the heavy mallet. Then just guide it on to the ball.

(Can sent a ball the full width of the lawn with a one-handed grip.)

Casting

This involves swinging the mallet over the ball before hitting it. I do recommend this for lining up your roquets. Whether you should keep swinging and then hit the ball is a matter of taste.

Standard (dominant hand at the top of the shaft, knuckles away, other hand below dominant hand, palm away)

Don’t say don’t

You may have been told “don’t look up when hitting the ball”. When doing a reverse take-off, there is a natural tendency to think “don’t leave it short”.  Unfortunately, your brain is surprisingly bad at processing the work “don’t”. So rather than think “don’t look up”, instead say “watch the mallet hit the ball”. This is a positive, and definite, thing to do. When doing a reverse take off, don’t think “don’t leave it short”. Rather pick a precise spot where you want your ball to land. Again, this is positive and definite.

SMOOOTH

Make your swing smooth. This really help you to achieve a consistent result. However, as we age, this is not always possible

Strokes

What are the different types of strokes?

• Roquet
• Rush
• Positioning (not trying to hit another ball)
• Drive
• Stop shot
• Roll (straight or split)
• Run the hoop

Roquet

The object of this stroke is to hit another ball.

• Stalk the ball
• Line up your stroke
• Swing smoothly
• Follow through. It helps to keep the shot straight.

What is your critical distance? This is the distance for which you have a 50% chance of hitting the other ball. If the distance of the ball to be roqueted is greater than your critical distance, consider what will happen if you miss and consider getting close to the ball and using a bisque to continue.

Rush

The object of this stroke is to hit another ball and to move that ball to a specific position.

Practice rushing a specific distance. If the striker’s ball is sliding when it hits the other on, the rushed ball will go further than if the striker’s ball is rolling when it hits the other ball.

Rushing a ball that is over 1 yard away is difficult. Concentrate on hitting the ball dead centre. That is more effective than blasting away.

To rush a ball at an angle (cut rush), imagine placing a ball against the target ball lined up in the direction you want the rushed ball to go. Just as you would if you were playing a croquet stroke. Then play the stroke to get the striker’s ball into that exact position.

Positioning

Sometimes, your best cause of action is just to hit your ball to a specific position; often off the lawn. Check carefully that the position you are aiming at is indeed the position you intend. Remember that if the ball goes off the lawn, it will come back on 1 yard.

Croquet strokes in general

When playing a croquet stroke, have exact targets for where you want each ball to end up. Then give priority to one ball and trust your swing to send the other one to the correct place. The priority ball will depend on the stroke. If you are placing a pioneer, usually give priority to the position of the pioneer. When playing a hoop approach, give priority to the striker’s ball.

Line up your balls carefully. The croqueted ball will travel along the direction through the centres of the two balls, regardless of the stroke that you play.

Make sure that the two balls are in contact. Legally, they should be (although if they do fall apart, this is not a fault), but the main reason that is that if the balls are not touching, you will get an inconsistent result. This might mean treading on one or both of the balls. This is something you can do just as well as the world champion, so do it.

In a legal croquet stroke, the striker’s ball will never travel in the direction that the mallet is swinging unless this is a perfectly straight stroke. Even attempts at perfectly straight strokes rarely result in that outcome.

The drive

• Line up your stroke
• Swing smoothly
• Follow through

What is your ratio for a drive? This is the ratio of the distances that the croqueted ball and the striker’s ball travel. It is typically somewhere between 3:1 and 4:1. It does not matter what your personal ratio is, but you should know what it is. Knowing your personal ratio will tell you if you should be playing a drive, a stop shot, or a roll.

A drive is the most accurate way of sending a pioneer to the next-but-one hoop.

The stop shot

The aim of a stop shot is to send the croqueted ball a certain distance while the striker’s ball moves much less far. The distance ratio will be larger than for a drive.

In playing a stop shot, the aim is to hit the striker’s ball, and then to stop the mallet with no follow through. The extent to which this can be achieved will depend on your technique and on how far the balls are travelling. It is possible to get a huge ratio if you are barely moving the striker’s ball.

There are (at least) two ways of playing a stop shot. You can swing the mallet and at the moment of impact with the striker’s ball, hit the heel of the mallet into the ground, thereby stopping further forward motion. Alternatively, you can swing the mallet, intending no follow through, and actively stop the mallet with the muscles in your hands. Which is better for you may depend on your grip, how well you can time hitting the heel of the mallet into the ground, and how strong your hands are.

A stop shot is the most accurate way of positioning the striker’s ball just in front of the hoop, ready to run the hoop in the next stroke.

The roll

The aim of a roll stroke is to send the two balls comparable distances. In order to achieve this you need to hit down on the striker’s ball with the face of the mallet tilted forwards.

There are several types of roll strokes.

Half roll

The ratio of the distances travelled is 2:1.

Put your upper hand at the top of the mallet shaft and the lower hand half way down. Take your stance so that you will hit down on the striker’s ball by standing closer to the ball than for a drive. Play the stroke with follow through.

Three-quarter roll

The ratio of the distances travelled is 3:2 (approx.).

Put your upper hand at the top of the mallet shaft and the lower hand at the bottom. Doing exactly this may be uncomfortable, so do what is practical. Take your stance so that you will hit down on the striker’s ball more than in the half roll. Play the stroke with follow through.

Full roll

The ratio of the distances travelled is 1:1.

Put your upper hand half way down the mallet shaft and the lower hand at the bottom. Take your stance so that you will hit down on the striker’s ball, again even more so than for the three-quarter roll. Play the stroke as a punch with follow through.

Pass roll

The striker’s ball will travel further than the croqueted ball. Consequently the two balls must travel in different directions.

Put both of your hands well down the mallet. Take your stance so that you will hit down on the striker’s ball, again even more so than for the full roll. It is hard to get a lot of distance with this stroke, but that can come with practice. Play the stroke as a punch with no follow through.

Split shots

Split shots are some of the most difficult strokes to get right. You want to move the two balls in very different directions.

The thin take-off

A thin take-off is where you move the striker’s ball while moving the croqueted ball hardly at all. It is important that the croqueted ball moves, so generally make the take off a little thicker so there is no danger off that ball not moving. The striker’s ball WILL move in the direction perpendicular to the line joining the two balls. In fact, counterintuitively, this is truer with a slightly thicker take off than with a very thin one.

Big splits

If you need to play a split sending the balls somewhere between 30 and 60 degrees to each other, then decide where the two balls should end up, draw an imaginary line between the two end positions, find the mid-point of that line, and that is the direction in which you should swing.

90 degree splits are hard to judge the distance since it is hard to judge the angle at which you should swing you mallet on the lawn. But there is one magic case. This is the 30 degree angle. Line up the top of the striker’s ball with the edge of the croqueted ball and swing on this line. This will result in you swinging at 30 degrees to the line through the balls. You can always judge this angle on the lawn, so make good use of this shot.

Running a hoop

Stalk the ball.

Line up your swing carefully. You MUST miss the near wire. No exceptions.

Swing smoothly. Jabbing at the ball is likely to send it in the wrong direction.

Make sure that your ball is rolling (and not skidding) when it reaches the hoop.

Southern Croquet Federation Northern Leagues.

Our first Advantage League Matches are already booked (before we even have a team!). This season Caversham Blue will be playing 8 matches in total against Blewbury C & D, Eynsham, Harwell A, High Wycombe Kites and Phyllis Court C & D.

Caversham Blue will first play Phyllis Court C on Friday 25^th April. Hopefully weekend dates at Blewbury in June will encourage some new players to sign up for the Team. Jane Probitts is once again organising this League for us, so please get in touch if you’d like to be on the team this year.

We have entered only 2 teams, Caversham Black & Red, in this year’s One Court League against Aldermaston, Aldershot A & B, Basingstoke Cavaliers, Roundheads & Levellers – so 7 matches for each of our teams, half of which will be played at home.  Jane will need some help from a Team Captain volunteer for each team – please step forward.

Champion of Champions Tournament at Hamptworth on Sunday April 13th.

Our winner of last year’s Club GC Singles Competition, Neil George, will be representing Caversham this year.

Top GC Tournament – SCF GC Championship. Sat May 31^st at Phyllis Court, Henley.

This is for the 8 best ranked players in the Federation – typically with handicaps of 2 and better. So, a spectator event for Caversham players!

Hamptworth Croquet Club – Sat 8^th & Sun 9^th March 2025.

Level play GC singles with all standards of players welcome. Each day is a separate tournament with players in 2 Class Groups (lower and higher handicaps). There is a maximum of 2 players allowed per Club per Group and each player can expect to get 6 games (per day). There is a limit of 16 players per day and those interested should book with Richard Jenkins (m. 01722325410) on Richard.jenkins21@btinternet.com with £15 entry fee (per day) paid on the day.

Our Winter Lawn set up started on November 1^st. It was decided not to reduce the lawn size to 6/7ths, as in previous years, but to keep the Full lawn divided into two half lawns, with the default of a half lawn being set up. It remains very important for us to routinely change the patterns of wear and tear on the lawn over winter and so you may find, when you come to play, that the half lawn in use is nearest the Car Park. The starting corner on either lawn may also vary from the Bowling Green side to the Tennis Court side – remember that Hoop 1 is the Blue Hoop and that you should in GC be playing clockwise from the corner towards it at the start.

Remember that Winter Rules now apply – so no jump shots allowed!

Tim Leverton says that he has never before won a sporting competition, so here he is holding the GC Doubles Plate having just won our GC Doubles Competition this year.

In the AC Winslow Cup there was no stopping Will Watson who, after a slow start against Mike Reddy in the first round, romped through two more rounds to reach the Final in which he beat Chris Barnard by 15-4.

Trophies will be presented on members Day on Saturday August 24th.

In our first AC League Match against Oxford University we finished 3-1 ahead. Here is the scoresheet.

Oxford University Charles Sharpe H10 26-3 v Gareth Hobby H12
Oxford University Danny Dawson H18 15-23 v Charles Briggs H14
Oxford University Josh Jackson H24 11- 18 v Neil George H16
Oxford University Sam Reynolds H24 7 -26 v Will Watson H20

Congratulations to Neil whose handicap has now come down to 14.

Here is the scoresheet.

Great to have had a sunny day and good interest from the public. We had ten visitors in all, which was four more than last year. So, well worth the effort and many thanks to all who helped promote our sport on the day. Our waiting list for membership has now been added to!

All our GC League teams have been in action during May. All matches were played at Caversham where the players enjoyed plenty of homemade cake to boost their energy. Thank you to all members who have played, helped prepare the lawn, provided refreshments and come along to support our players.

The One Court League saw Red V Yellow (12 May) with the Yellow team winning 4-1. Red represented by the two Tims (Small and Leverton)  and Liz Walker and Jane Probitts playing for Yellow. 

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23 May –  Black (Judy Reddy and Chris Barnard) won 4-1 against Red (Neil George making his debut appearance alongside Tim Small )

Future matches are listed on TeamUp. 

Welcome to May, and the start of our new Caversham Climbers croquet ladder competitions – organised by Gareth Hobby.

• You can challenge anyone on the ladder within 5 places of you, up or down.
• If the higher player wins then they advance one position up the ladder.
• If the lower player wins then they advance to just above the higher player
• Please adjust your positions on the ladder in the clubhouse, but also send all results to me (garethhobby@aol.com) and enter them in your handicap cards
• You can only play each other person once per month, in each competition
• The GC games are played using the Advantage system 
• The AC games are 14 pt games with 1:45 timelimit, played using a base handicap of 5  

Starting positions have been drawn at random and the ladders have been set up as follows:

GC Ranked List
Position	Name	Handicap
1	Chris Barnard	10
2	Mark Keogh	6
3	Mike Parker	10
4	Maureen Stewart	14
5	Wil Watson	8
6	Kate Armitage	12
7	John Wakeford	10
8	Liz Walker	10
9	Tim Leverton	8
10	Brian Jamieson	4
11	Dave Murray	10
12	Mike Reddy	7
13	Linda Allen	12
14	Marjorie Tierney	14
15	Anne Small	5
16	Judy Reddy	10
17	Katherine Molyneux	14
18	Bill Runacre	10
19	Tim Small	7
20	Charles Briggs	8
21	Jane Probitts	12
22	Jill Murray	12
23	Pam Briggs	8
24	Carol Jamieson	6
25	Gareth Hobby	7
26	Stella Kendall	11
27	Neil George	9
28	Molly Anderson	14
29	Carol Hill	10
30	Pauline Fisher	11
31	Deanna Nield	12
32	Sally Judge	12

AC Ranked List
Position	Name	Handicap
1	Will Watson	20
2	Terry Marsh	20
3	John Wakeford	22
4	Mark Keogh	16
5	Chris Grieves	16
6	Michael Kay	4
7	Francis Brown	20
8	Carol Jamieson	20
9	Mike Reddy	24
10	Phil Sweeney	24
11	Bob Eales	11
12	Brian Jamieson	9
13	Gareth Hobby	12
14	Chris Barnard	20
15	Charles Briggs	14
16	Jasmine Marsh	24
17	Liz Walker	24
18	Neil George	16
19	Ben Hargreaves	16

If anyone who wants to play in the competition has been missed off the lists, then please let me know and I’ll add you to the bottom of the ladder.

If you don’t yet have a handicap then don’t let that stop you taking part – you can play off a handicap of 20 in AC or 10 in GC, but your scores won’t count towards handicap cards for you or your opponents.

Gareth will provide a separate sheet to illustrate how to calculate bisques for the AC games (to hopefully avoid confusion)

If you have any questions, please drop Gareth an email or a text on 07557 347420.

Ladder Rules

Starting positions on each ladder have been assigned at random.

You are allowed to challenge anyone on the board within 5 places, above or below.

You may only play each opponent once per month in each competition (once in AC and once in GC)

You can book the lawn as normal, up to 7 days in advance.

Please double-bank where possible (however AC and GC games should not play at the same time)

If the lower player wins, they move above the higher player, if not the higher player moves up one place 

Matches

Each game is a formal match, using your AC or GC handicap, and should be recorded on your handicap card(s)

AC games should be played to 14-pts with a time limit of 1:45  and a handicap base of 5

GC games should be standard 7-pt game using the Advantage system

At the end of your game, please adjust the relative position of your lollipops, update your handicap cards and email me your results (with date and time of match) 

Handicaps

You should use your current handicap from the start of that day.

Players without handicaps can still take part.  They will be assigned a temporary handicap for the purpose of the competition (AC:20 and GC:10) but matches they take part in will not count towards anyone’s handicap and should not be recorded on handicap cards by either player.

AC ‘Handicap base of 5’ explained:

• if both players have a handicap greater than 9 then each player gets bisques, calculate their bisques as if they were playing a player of handicap 0, and then take off the base of 5
• If either player has a handicap of 9 or below then handicaps are calculated as normal for a 14 pt game

Monthly Updates

Each month, I will check the order of the ladder and email out a set of results and an updated ladder position.

After two months, any player who has not played any games at all will be removed from the ladder. 

If they wish to rejoin at a later stage, then they are welcome to do so, and will do so at the bottom.

Good luck everyone and play well.

Rgds

Gareth

Many thanks to Gareth for volunteering to take on the organisation of this new initiative and thanks to Neil George for suggesting the ladder and actually making it!

Follow the Money! Treasurer beats Chair.

Twelve contestants battled it out in the First rounds – each playing 3 matches, first to peg out with 13 points but with a 40 minute time limit per game. With 3 players each winning all 3 of their games the 4th semi final position was between Brian and John, each with 2 wins but with Brian having a net hoop score of 9 and John with 5, Brian went through.

Player	Handicap	Hoops run	Games won
Brian Jamieson	9	36	2
Jasmine Marsh	20	23
Will Watson	20	39	3
Carol Jamieson	15	27	1
Heather Hanshaw	20	19
John Wakeford	20	31	2
Pam Briggs	20	31	1
Chris Barnard	20	36	3
Gareth Hobby	12	32	1
Neil George	16	36	1
Sarah Weeks	20	28	1
Charles Briggs	14	39	3

In the final rounds Chris beat Will by 10 hoops to 9 , Charles beat Brian by 13 hoops to 10 and then Chris beat Charles 13 hoops to 9. Thanks to Anne Small donating her entry fee we managed to exceed the £125 fund raising that allows us to qualify for 2 places in the Regional Finals. Unfortunately Chris is unable to make either of the scheduled dates and so it will be Charles and Will going to Surbiton on May 5th.