Category: News

Colchester Croquet Club  began the celebrations for its Centenary year with an Open day at the club house in Elianore Road.

Nearly 60 people attended including ten people who were new to the game . 

After one hour of play, members and guests were called in to  watch the  Mayoress of Colchester, Alderman Lyn  Barton, cut the centenary cake. The Croquet club has plans to host more events this year including a centenary competition in the summer. The photo shows the Mayoress with Club President, Chris Sheen . 

28 players entered this year’s Winter League and bravely played during the wettest January and February in living memory! Luckily the weather was dry and sunny for the final between Paul Trumper and Simon Bird. In a closely contested match, Paul came through to win 7-5, 7-5.

Save the date!  We are having the club’s Centenary Tea on Monday afternoon, April 13th, 2pm to 5pm.  Please come along and meet the Mayor, enjoy some tea cake and biscuits, have a chat and even play some croquet!  We are hoping to use the centenary celebrations, which will include another event in the summer, as a vehicle to recruit new members.  So please bring along a friend or two on the 13th and encourage them to join.  So that Philippa has some idea about numbers for catering, please let her know if you are coming.

We have attached a copy of the flyer for the event. So to make this a success,  print it out and put one up in some of your local venues.  How about your local golf club and tennis club?  A great place to start would be your local GP surgery, obviously ask permission first. Doctors are always keen to promote ways to get their patients to exercise, and think of the footfall in a GP’s waiting room!  This important recruitment drive won’t work without your help, so please spend a few minutes to put up a flyer and then notify Philippa or myself where your flyer is so we can coordinate things.  If you don’t have a colour printer then tell us and we will leave copies at the club.

Thanks for your help,
Philippa and Martin

Advantage GC in 2026

Please see below important information regarding a change to the Advantage Handicap System.

Subsequent to advice from the WCF Advantage Committee, Croquet England GC Rules Committee has approved the adoption of the Target Scores method of scoring for all Advantage GC games in England from March 1^st 2026.

This method replaces Starting Scores and all such existing documentation should likewise be replaced with the Advantage 2026 versions available on line at https://www.croquet.org.uk/?p=games/golf/advantage

Clubs are advised to display printed copies of:

• How to Play Advantage Golf Croquet – 2026  
• Poster: Completing Your Handicap Card
• Standard Game Tables

Players, coaches and referees will also find the following helpful for a fuller understanding:

• FAQs
• PowerPoint briefing

The Round Robin phase of the Winter League is now finished, so it’s time for the Knockout.  The qualifiers are:

League A

Paul Trumper was first with Paul Goodall second on Hoop difference

League B

Simon Bird was first with Robert Jacklin second on Hoop difference

League C

Georgeen Hemming would have won but unfortunately had to withdraw due to a broken arm, so the qualifiers are Gill Glen with 3 wins and Marilyn Wood with 2 wins.

League D

Hugh Brown was first with Martin Tunmore second on hoop difference from Pat de Burca, Jerry Morgan and Penny Jacklin.

Congratulations to all the qualifiers.

The draw for the Knockout is available on the website.

Please enter results on the draw sheet on the Notice board in the Club house and email results promptly to cccresults@gmail.com

Please play your matches before the Play by dates shown on the draw sheet.  Matches not played on time may be decided by a coin toss to avoid delaying the next round.

Good luck!

On Saturday, 30 of our members attended the club’s annual Christmas lunch and prizegiving in the clubhouse.  A HUGE thank you to Patricia for organising, managing, cooking and general coordination. Once again it’s great to be able to say the food was better than the local hotels!  Thanks also to everyone who helped on the day, to all who brought along food and our Chairman Jonathan who presented the trophies.  And well done to everyone who came along and supported the club.

Once again, Marilyn did a great job in organising a full complement of internal competitions with 9 GC, 13 AC  and 1 One ball – see here for a full list of winners. The most improved player award for AC went to Tony White and for GC to Simon Bird, who reduced his handicap from 6 to 2 in his first full year of playing – a remarkable achievement.  

Also in 2025, Marilyn led our club team to victory in the East Anglia Golf Croquet Handicap League, overcoming 26 other clubs from around the region and once again qualifying for the National Federations Shield competition and cementing our position as one of the premier clubs in the country.

Our Winter League Competition is well underway, and Paul Goodall will be looking to defend his trophy from last year.  Then, in the Spring, we’ll open up for the Club’s Centenary year – watch this space.

Many thanks to everyone who helped make our Coffee Morning on Saturday a great success – we made an amazing £421.50 which will go some way towards our much needed replacement lawnmower and to our Centenary celebrations next year.  A particular shout out to Philippa and Chris for organising the whole event, but also to everyone who contributed by helping out on the day and donating sale items and raffle prizes.   Last but not least, thanks to members and guests who turned out on the day and purchased crafts, cakes, bric-a-brac and raffle tickets making the day a great success. Well done all!

A reminder that this will take place on Saturday. Many thanks to Chris and Philippa and helpers for all their hard work organising it. It would be great to see as many members as possible at the Club to enjoy this social occasion.