Ealing Croquet Club

A Member of Croquet England

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The Pavilion, Lammas Park, Culmington Road,
Ealing, London W5 5JH

Competitive Croquet

Whether you’re playing for fun or more seriously, croquet is a competitive game. There are a number of competitions you can enter.

Internal competitions
The club runs several internal competitions for members, covering all levels of experience and ability.

Inter-club competitions and leagues
The club enters a number of these, and members of all abilities are always welcome to play. They’re a great way to get your first taste of competitive croquet. Whether officially designated as friendlies or not, all croquet matches, whilst hard-fought, are played in a spirit of conviviality and sportsmanship. Tea and cake feature prominently.

Tournaments
There is a flourishing tournament schedule from March to October at clubs across the country (and overseas), run by the Croquet Association. Many players get bitten by the bug and become regulars on the circuit!

Competition Achievments

2023

Hosting part of the AC World Championship was a huge success for the Club this year (see opposite), with many compliments received about our lawns, friendliness and hospitality.

In the European GC Club League the Ealing team (Charlie, Simon Turner, Sean and Emma) were runners up in the heat in Latvia in July and finalists at Roehampton in October.

A team from Ealing (Simon Turner, Fred, Tony and John) went to Chester to play in the semi final of the Murphy Shield, but lost unfortunately.

Simon Tuke won his block in the Hurlingham AC Advanced May Bank Holiday Tournament with 7 wins out of 7, and over the weekend of 30 September he won the Surbiton ARK Advanced Handicap Tournament with 5 wins out of 5.

He was also a winner in the Ealing internal AC All-England Handicap knockout. Ealing had more qualifiers for the AC All-England area final than any other club in the country with four.  We also had 25% of the qualifiers for the National final at Chester (Sean Doherty and Simon Tuke).

Sean Doherty also had several other successes.  He won the GC ‘B’ Class Ealing Trophy in June, but couldn’t compete in the National finals because of a family wedding, and again in June he was a winner in the Ealing Handicap Open Competition. He came third overall in the AC All England AC Handicap National Finals in September.

Simon Turner was Runner-up in both the GC ‘B’ Series Tournament at East Dorset, and the AC ‘C’ Level Tournament at Nottingham. He also partnered David Graham in the GC Handicap Doubles at Hurlingham on 28 August, but they only managed 6th place out of 16 players.

Bridget Goodman was proud to reach the Quarter finals of the Sidmouth ‘A’ Level 0+ Tournament but as she said, ‘no cigars for me’!

In the SECF Leagues, Ealing came third in the AC ‘U’ League, 5th in the GC ‘H’ League East out of 18 teams and 9th in the GC ‘R’ League.  An Ealing team, Ealing Falcons, won the SECF Short Croquet Tournament, which we hosted on 8 October.

News for 2023

The club was selected as a satellite venue for the 2023 Association Croquet World Championships, which were held from July 15-23. There were 80 competitors, divided initially into 8 blocks of 10 players. Over the first three days players played the other 9 players in their block, with three games a day. Ealing was a venue for these blocks. Four players qualified from each group and went through to a knockout.

Non-qualifiers were eligible for the Plate competition. The first two days of this decided the 8 players who went through to a knockout, and again Ealing was a venue – on the Wednesday and Thursday.

This was a tremendous opportunity for us to showcase the club, and to witness some top-class croquet on our lawns. The event was a great success, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of the many club members who volunteered to help out – and who generously gave up use of the lawns for more than a week.

Photograph: David Graham