The CCA calendar for the rest of the season has been updated.

You can download it from https://croquetcanterbury.com/calendar/ or view individual months.

The Primary Grade this year was held over two days, Saturday and Sunday. The weather forecast did not look in our favour as the weekend got closer.

This year 24 players registered from Clubs across Canterbury, including two players travelling from Awamoa Gardens in Oamaru. We had 18 players at Cashmere and 6 players at St Martins on Saturday and managed to get all games finished before a light shower.

With steady rain overnight 2 of the lawns at Cashmere were not playable on Sunday. The players were very disappointed and have agreed to complete the tournament early in the new year – a date yet to be confirmed.

The Intermediate, Senior and Premiers, a total of 24 players, arrived on Sunday morning ready with wet weather clothing. After checking the lawns it was decided to go ahead with the tournament, however, we were reduced to the use of 3 lawns. Unfortunately this did mean longer wait times between games. All games were played in great spirit with many games going to the 13^th hoop. The Senior Division was closely fought with the winner decided on the last hoop of the day.

Thank you to all the players  who entered the Grades this season and we look forward to setting a date for the completion of the Primary Division

Intermediate Winner:    Peter Entwistle – Barrington Club
Runner-up:                       Keelan Macfadyen – Wellington (Assoc United)
Third Place:                      Gaylia Powell – Cashmere

Senior winner:                 Dave McMillan – Akaroa
Runner-up:                       John Foster – Rangiora

Premier Winner:              Josh Winter – Cashmere
Runner-up:                        Levi Franks – Cashmere 

The Winners will also receive the CNZ Silver Badge

On Sunday 26 September 2021 the CCA GC Handicap Singles Croquet Tournament was held at Fendalton Park Croquet Club and St Martins Croquet Club.

There were 32 entries which were organized into 4 blocks of 8 players with two blocks at each of the venues. The weather forecast wasn’t great but all 32 hardy souls turned up for the tournament. In spite of the cold and fortunately very little rain, there was some great croquet and a very pleasant though competitive spirit among the players.

Each player had five games in their block and the winners of each block then played a semi-final and final. The top players were Mark Winter from Cashmere, Galina Worley from United, Pat Pidgeon and Graham Jones from Akaroa. The semi-finals saw Mark and Graham battling it out in the finals for the trophy. It was a keenly contested game, going into overtime at an equal score.

Final results were Mark Winter as winner of the GC Handicap Singles tournament, Runner up Graham Jones and third place Pat Pidgeon.

My thanks go to Cheryl Morrall for managing the blocks of players at St Martins; to Gay Jones and Tim Slack for being the referees for the day; to John Borner and St Martins for agreeing to host the extra players at very short notice; and to Mike Dawson and others at Fendalton Park for their help in hosting the tournament at Fendalton. It was a great day !

Vilna Gough-Jones (Tournament Manager)

On Sunday 19 September, Waireka Croquet Club in Ashburton hosted the annual AC Interprovincial Championship, with Canterbury travelling to defend the trophy won in 2020

A total of 20 experienced and newer players from Fendalton, Cashmere, St James, United, Holmes Park and Rangiora make the trek down. We arrived in the sunshine, and it remained for the rest of day with a cool breeze from time to time.

The game format was Championship Levels with three x two-hour games. At the end of round one the South Canterbury team held a one-point lead, however, Canterbury rallied during round two to finish with a 35-point lead going into round three. Strong games by Leo and Tim, and Marguaritte and Gay contributing 23 of those extra points. A great effort in the final round saw Canterbury stretch the lead to 43. This round saw strong games played by Josh and James, Myles and Bruce, Jono and Neville, and Geraldine and Helene.

The final score Canterbury 376 South Canterbury 333. Basil the Ram is safely back in Canterbury for another year.

CCA recently ran training courses for Golf Croquet referees. Newly qualified referees are:
(top row) Mike Dawson (Fendalton) , John Borner (St Martins), Tim Slack (Holmes Park),
(bottom row) Gay Jones (Cashmere), Sylvia MacFarlane (Cashmere)

CCA Closing Day was held Sunday 18 April 2021 at Fendalton Park Croquet Club.

The CCA Beginners competition was held before the closing.

Closing Day started with play from 2pm to 3pm followed by the prize-giving and afternoon tea.

Prizes and awards are listed below followed by photos.

Players who had joined one of the 14 CCA Clubs since September 2019, were on a 12, 14 or 16 handicap and had not yet competed in Interclub were invited to enter a competition run on the morning of our Closing Day.

We expected around 20 entries but ended up with 40, representing 10 of our 14 clubs. Unfortunately, some had to withdraw, and we ended up with 8 blocks of 4 players with two blocks playing on a lawn. We had to be finished by 1 pm so went for a round robin format with each block of 4 playing 3, 7-point levels games and then Block A playing off against Block B to end up with a winner for each lawn. This meant that everyone played four 7-point games as well as allowing for lots of socialising with members from other clubs between games.

Many of the competitors had never played a singles game before, so the supervising referees on each lawn were kept very busy. Thank you to our five referees, Bruce McLay, Nigel Grondin, John Yarrall, Gay Jones and Duncan Dixon.

The format and withdrawals created a few issues for the managers, two of whom were managing their first tournament, but we coped. Apologies to Libby Newcombe who started in a block of five players and ended up on her own. Well done to Sylvia MacFarlane and Helen Webber for their excellent work, you make a great management team.

Many of the players had never filled an AHS card in before so help was on hand to show them how to use the charts to work out points won/lost and five players also reduced their handicaps. This will stand them in good stead for Interclub which is also Levels play. Thanks to Janet Scott, Esme Burt and others who helped out here.

After a chilly start we had a beautiful Canterbury day, and it was great to see players from so many clubs competing against each other and enjoying each other’s company. We are looking forward to seeing many of them competing in the Interclub competition next season and I will be running regular coaching/rules sessions over the winter to help them prepare for this. If you are interested, please email me at chorncastle1@gmail.com

Thank you to Fendalton CC for allowing us to use their lawns and to Mike Dawson and Vina Gough-Jones for turning out at 7.15 am to set everything up. A big thanks to Esme Burt and her team for their hard work in the kitchen for both this competition and the CCA prize-giving that followed.

Full results are on Croquet Scores at https://croquetscores.com/2021/gc/cca-newcomers.

The bi-annual South Island GC Teams event was held over the weekend 20/21 March 2021 at the Waireka Croquet Club in Ashburton. The Associations represented were Canterbury, South Canterbury, Nelson, Southland and North Otago. 

Canterbury were represented by Duncan Dixon (United), Gay Jones (Cashmere), Mark Walker (Akaroa) and Lyn Ringrose (St Martins). 

South Canterbury had the overall lead after the singles games on Saturday.  The doubles were played on Sunday and the final result was still in the balance with 3 games to play. The Premier game between South Canterbury and Canterbury was won by Canterbury however the other two games were won by Southland and South Canterbury.

After two days of play the final result saw South Canterbury with 18 games and Canterbury on 17. 

A fantastic weekend with Croquet and new friendships the winner.  Congratulations to South Canterbury and we look forward to next year when it will be South Island AC Teams. 

Full details on CroquetScores at https://croquetscores.com/2021/gc/si-golf-croquet-teams-championships-1

The final of the Atkins Trophy was held at St Martins on Saturday, March 20^th. Twenty teams had played five rounds to reach this stage, culminating in 19 point knock-outs on the day.

The first semi- final between Holmes Park and Akaroa 3 was won by Holmes Park 10-4. The other semi -final was between Cashmere 2 and United 1, and Cashmere came out the winners by 10-6.

In the final Cashmere 2 took the trophy beating Holmes Park 10-5.

The Plate was won by Cashmere 1 who overcame Fendalton 2 in the plate final by 10-3. Previously Cashmere 1 had beaten St James 1 in a tight game 10-9, and Fendalton 2 over Hornby 1, 10-7.

A full list of results can be found on Croquet Scores at https://croquetscores.com/2021/gc/atkins-trophy.

Cheryl Morrall (Manager)

The CCA GC Silver Badge Finals were played at United on Sunday 14th March 2021. The weather was perfect at around 22 degrees although it was a bit too windy at times.

There were eight entries in the Primary Grade who each played seven, 50-minute, 13-point games, and 6 entries in both the Intermediate and Senior grades who each played five untimed 13-point games. There were just three entries in the Premier Grade so they played best-of-3 matches.

There was some excellent croquet played in all the grades and no-one won all their games. The eventual winners were:

Primary – Carolyn Smith (Akaoroa) with 6/7 wins. Well done to Marie McDonald (Barrington) for beating her in the final game of the grade.

Intermediate – Melanie Stevenson (Cashmere) with 4/5 wins despite a 6/7 loss to Louis Inglewood (United) in her first, very long game. 

Senior – Neville Turner with 4/5 wins only beaten 2/7 in his last game by Galina Worley (United).

Premier – Duncan Dixon who won 6/8 games. The final match of the day was a nail-biter between Duncan and Josh Winter (Cashmere) with Duncan just getting the win 1/7, 7/3, 7/6.

Full results are available on croquetscores

Many thanks to Bruce McLay who gave up yet another Sunday to referee for us and to United CC for the use of their lawns and the excellent catering.

There are no prize-giving photos as the Silver Badges will be awarded at the CCA Closing Day on Saturday 17th April.

Claire Horncastle (Manager)