CROQUET NEWS:  Wielding the Mallet in Snooker on Grass

31 December 2006
Cairnlea, Victoria, AU
by Kevin Beard with Vanessa Burrow in The Age, Melbourne, Victoria, AU
photo by Rebecca Hallas in The Age, Melbourne, Victoria, AU

Kevin Beard takes aim at the croquet centre at Cairnlea.

This summer, I'm playing in the Victorian Open. For about 10 years, we've held the Victorian Open between Christmas and New Year. It's the most prestigious state event and a lot of interstate people tend to come along.

On Thursday, I won the doubles championship with my playing partner, Mike Jenner. He's actually English, but he's looking to move to Australia and he's just been selected in the NSW state team.

Now we'll compete in the singles until New Year's Day.

Croquet is a very tactical game. It's like snooker on grass, or some people describe it as chess on grass. It's rich with tactics and you have to have good touch skills as well.

You score one point for every hoop and there's six hoops in the course. Each player has two balls — one has a red and yellow ball and the other has a black and a blue ball. You have to put each ball through the hoops in one direction and then back in the other direction.

The season runs from August or September through to May. We play in all weather. We would only stop if the courts got flooded, if there was lightning, or if the temperature got too high.

At last year's Victorian Open, the temperature was over 40 degrees and we stopped about 1pm on New Year's Eve. We had to play the finals the next day, so we actually started playing at 6am. That's dedication for you.

I'd played croquet as a kid, but I never really knew it was an organised sport until I attended a work function one day.

I'm a geneticist in the dairy industry and I work for the Department of Primary Industries at Attwood, north of Melbourne. The director of the institute used to go to a conference every year at Lorne and in the evenings they played croquet — he loved it. So he looked for a club when he came back to Melbourne and held a work function there. I played with my workmates and enjoyed it, so I arranged a coaching session. That was eight years ago.

I'm ranked No. 2 in Victoria, that's the highest I've ever been ranked. I've also just found out that I've been selected to play in the Australian A team. It's similar to the Australia A team in cricket. We're going to play in New Zealand at the end of next month.

At the top level, Britain absolutely dominates the sport, so NZ and Australia are trying to remove that dominance. They're trying to get the second-tier players blooded so they are used to playing under pressure against really good competition.

It's a real honour to be selected.

I would like to get into the Australian team. My goal is to compete in the MacRobertson International Shield — it's the premier croquet team event in the world, with teams from the US, Britain, NZ and Australia.

The world championships are in NZ in February 2008. I've just about booked my ticket. Even if I don't get nominated by Australia, I'll go and play in one of the qualifying tournaments.

You do have to train to play croquet well. At my club in Brunswick, we've got lights and we train every Monday night. I've done that pretty religiously for the whole eight years that I've been playing.