CROQUET NEWS:  Cock-a-Hoop for Croquet

29 May 2005
Meadows Croquet Club, Edinburgh, Scotland
by Claire Sawers in Sunday Times, Glasglow, Scotland

Forget sipping G&Ts on the lawn — it’s all beer and bbqs for the new croquet generation.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a challenge as much as the next woman, but when I set out to sample the latest craze to break out across Scotland, there was an unmistakable twinge of dread in my heart. “It is,” I’d read, in the words of an American enthusiast called Alexander Woollcott, “no game for the soft of sinew and the gentle of spirit. The highest and dirtiest player can use the guile of the cobra and the inhumanity of a boa constrictor. Then the general physique of a stevedore comes in handy, too.”

Put it another way. The game I was about to try was a monstrous mix of snakes and dockers. All-in wrestling? American football? Contact Sudoku? None of the above. Implausibly, I was off to play croquet.

It might appear strange that something that looks so staid and slow should suddenly be so popular, but along with its surprising competitiveness, that’s how it is with croquet’s revival. That there are some 2,000 registered players in the country tells only part of the story, as impromptu games have been breaking out across Edinburgh’s parks and gardens. The city’s Meadows croquet club boasts more than 50 members, a respectable roll for any sports club, and still more teeming hotbeds can be found in otherwise tranquil settings like Dunkeld or Kinross, as well as in the fleshpots of Glasgow, Falkirk and Ayr. All the rage in the 1850s, croquet is back with a vengeance.

Joining the Tuesday evening throng around the neatly manicured lawn of the National Croquet Centre on the Meadows, something else is immediately apparent about the game’s revival. This new-found popularity has nothing to do with an appeal to a greying generation, but is based on a younger crowd. It is a trend that Brian Murdoch, chairman of the Scottish Croquet Association, confirms. “Most of our newcomers now are under 30, which is great news,” he tells me enthusiastically. “People are keen to try more unusual pastimes and we’re seeing the benefit.”

Some of those here tonight are complete novices, like Corrie Soutar, a 24-year-old marketing assistant. She sums up the game as a mixture of the precision of golf and the tactics of chess. “You have to calculate the geometry and angles when teeing up shots and then gauge the weight of your swing,” she says. “It’s not a simple case of just belting the ball through the hoop.”

Apparently not. I find the hoops are tiny and very fiddly, only three millimetres wider than the balls — roughly the thickness of a 20p coin. And that’s only part of the problem. As I warm up with a few practice whacks I discover that the mallet is far heavier and trickier to control than it looks and it takes me a while to get the hang of swinging it. The results are not impressive at first.

Admittedly, this game is not for those thrill seekers who get their kicks from downhill skiing, but croquet is far from genteel.

The game is played on a court that comprises six of those hoops and a centre peg. The aim is to direct two coloured balls through the hoops in a particular order and then hit the peg before your opponent. But to this end, experienced and devious players employ ruthless competitive strategies, blocking opponent’s balls whenever they can, with what seems likes terrific bad manners.

Not surprisingly, given the nip and tuck which is sometimes involved, games can last for up to three hours. And who knows what lengths the keenest competitors will go to? The Scottish Croquet Association even employs a doping control officer to deal with the most ruthless mallet-wielders.

In my ignorance, the stimulants I’ve normally associated with the sport are Pimm’s, or perhaps a long slow G&T on the lawn at a country house, as a butler passes round the cucumber sandwiches. But I’ve been hopelessly deluded apparently.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Murdoch. “We’re far more likely to have a barbecue and a few beers after a game. The modern game is nothing like the old-fashioned stereotype.”

I was beginning to see the upside of croquet. But for anyone put off by the intricacies of the game there is the option of “golf croquet” — a simplified, but equally competitive, version that can be played anywhere, including the official lawns. Tracy McKenzie, a marketing administrator for Scottish & Newcastle Breweries, introduces me to this alternative. “The ones who have been playing at the Meadows for years naturally take the game very seriously,” she says. “But for younger players and beginners the golf version is a much better laugh.”

She first came to the club on a staff night out and expected to be bored out of her wits. “But I was surprised to find that it’s not at all stuffy. I turn up in my jeans and a T-shirt, make a lot of noise and always have an absolute ball.”

McKenzie is now putting the word around the office and trying to set up a team to play in an Edinburgh corporate league alongside other established sides. As she points out, it is one of few outdoor sports that can be played by both sexes with identical rules, points and handicaps.

“Croquet appeals to anyone who has a bit of a competitive side to them,” she says.

Some are more competitive and successful than others. Meadows member Jonathan Kirby, 26, from Haddington is Scotland’s top croquet player and took 12th place at last year’s world championships. He says: “For me, croquet is a wonderful blend of tactics and technique. I enjoy planning how to build a break and then the satisfaction of playing a good shot. It’s a bit like playing a great nine iron into the green, except that a croquet swing is a bit easier than a golf swing and you get to play more shots, so there’s more satisfaction to be had.”

Satisfaction clearly takes practice, as my rather clumsy knock-about on the Meadows lawns proves. But heading off for a slow post-match drink, I reflect that there are many worse ways to spend a summer’s evening.

The Meadows Croquet Club (0870 746 2583) offers pay and play sessions on Tuesday evenings from 6-8pm, priced £5 for adults and £2 for students. Visit the Scottish Croquet Association.