Club

Croquet

Wrest Park

Ross Bagni won the Peterborough AC Handicap tournament 14-15 July

You may be aware that CqE has recently started a programme called Action for AC in order to encourage more people to play AC. In essence this comes down to getting more GC players to try it. One suggestion is a new hybrid game called Kwik Croquet; two others are to introduce the established formats of 1 ball and Short Croquet. Also included, under the title of AC Recruitment, is the the aim to “encourage GC players to play AC as well”.

This isn’t always easy because GC players often say that AC is too complicated, the game takes too long and you can spend a lot of time sitting down and doing nothing. These criticisms were answered cogently by Nick Mounfield in an article in issue 346 (Nov 2013) of the Gazette. Do read it.

Another means of encouragement is through the sharing of experience, so here are Ross Bagni’s thoughts on his first AC tournament. It was a handicap tournament at Peterborough for the Ken Hope-Jones Shield, there were 12 players with a wide range of handicaps and the format was Egyptian or Flexible Swiss (basically winners play winners, losers play losers) with four rounds. Ross (11) had opponents with handicaps of 14, 6, 6 and 10 and won three games +18 and the other +11. His last game against Colin Spencer took less than two hours.


Being mainly a GC player, I took up AC as a good friend “preferred” to play it. He taught me the basics, but I only played irregularly and as I have often said “it’s AC but not as you know it Jim”. I rely on my long hoop making!

Having played a few competitive matches for Wrest Park and to be honest my personal calendar clashing with my usual A Level series GC tournaments, I was thinking I need another tournament during July. Looking on the fixtures list, I alighted on the Peterborough AC Handicap on14/15 July.

Now I must admit that I really enjoy AC, but it’s my downtime and I feel no pressure to perform.  So, on arriving, I was feeling really relaxed and thinking if I won one match I’d be really happy.

Much to my surprise, most of the things I did worked (especially the long hoops, which I  needed far too much). I won my first match, despite going through a hoop the wrong way at one point which meant my turn was over. I made another silly mistake in the second, going though rover when well ahead, only for my opponent to follow suit and peg me out. Trouble brewed until my opponent, fortunately for me, went through hoop 4 the wrong way, thinking he was on 3-back. I managed to get back in and win. Well, I was really chuffed.  

My opponent in the next game just couldn’t get a break going (his words, not mine).  So we came to the final. Again, I thought I’ve done well to get here, so just enjoy it. Everything (well, most things that I did) worked well. Rushes went where they were supposed to, splits did similarly and roll shots, well, best not to talk about them too much, practice required!

So my first AC tournament was a success beyond my wildest dreams! But more importantly, I was welcomed and guided by the other players, who along with Adrian Kirby, made me feel very much at home.  A great experience. I’ll be back. Oh, and my wife is asking “Where can we keep that big shield”?

© Wrest Park Croquet Club