Welcome to our club
We are a friendly club with over 200 members aged from 8 to 98, and from many walks of life. We have room for more, thanks to our newly expanded and improved facilities, making us one of the country’s leading clubs, with 9 full sized lawns and two substantial well-equipped pavilions, providing some of the best croquet facilities and playing opportunities you’ll find anywhere. We cater for all abilities from complete beginner to world class; all ages from school age to vintage; and all styles of play from a pleasant, casual, social game to a highly skilful and competitive international sport.
We have an ethos of welcome, inclusion, mutual support, team spirit, volunteering, skills development and especially aspiring for sporting success.
Some members socialising outside the east pavilion
We put on events for complete beginners but also host elite events such as test matches in the prestigious MacRobertson Shield series, the 2015 Women's World Championship, and in 2019 the Under-21 World Golf Croquet Championship at which Euan Burridge, one of our members, was a bronze medallist.
Some of our current and past members have reached very distinguished and illustrious levels within the sport. We have around a dozen internationals, three former World Champions and the captain of the victorious 2010 Great Britain team.
Above: Three World Champions from our club in recent years. Below: view from the club gates (2018); two members in play in May when the rhododendrons are at their best; club member and Women's World champion Miranda Chapman being awarded Nottinghamshire sportsperson of the year.
We are pleased to have a thriving Junior section for school-children, and are working to encourage and support Student Croquet.
We have been playing in the elegant surroundings of Highfields Park since 1929, with a vista to the University of Nottingham's magnificent Trent Building (Morley Horder, 1928) depicted on our club logo.
During the season, which runs from early April to early October, lawns are available to members all day, seven days a week (except during certain events) and can be booked using our online lawn booking system for friendlies, club competitions, ladder games, coaching sessions, roll-up and play times, organised club events etc. Saturday afternoon club events followed by tea are very popular. A handicap system enables meaningful play between players of very different abilities. We also host tournaments (entered by individuals) and matches (inter-club team events). We enter our own teams in all the main national and regional inter-club competitions.
We run public Open Days and free taster sessions for people new to club croquet, and welcome casual play from visitors and passers-by when possible - especially on Tuesday afternoons and evenings. Additionally we have a range of community engagement activities for social groups, community groups or corporate awaydays, and our acclaimed and highly accessible Hoops 4 Health sessions (free of charge) for groups who may have little access to sport and/or are seeking health and well-being benefits.
Coaching courses for beginners are run each year, and we have programmes of ongoing coaching for more experienced players at all levels. Coaching is given freely by experienced members.
Outside the main playing season some lawns may be available for play, subject to maintenance and weather considerations. We usually have a range of social events (bridge evenings, board games, country rambles, club dinner) in the closed season.
Administratively, we are a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) - Charity registration no: 1205537, run by an annually elected committee, funded mainly by subscriptions, tournament income, lawn hire and catering, and in 2020-21 some generous grant funding. We have a 35-year lease starting in 2020 on our premises, from Highfields Leisure Park Trust, and this also covers work on maintaining the fine turf and surroundings. Our main expenditure is on the rent, utility bills, turf maintenance supplies and croquet equipment. The Member’s Area of this website contains more details of finances, constitution, AGM, elections, minutes etc.
Nottingham Croquet Club is affiliated to Croquet England, the national governing body for the sport, and the Federation of East Midlands Croquet Clubs.
Croquet isn’t just one game but a family of games played with mallets, balls and hoops. The two main codes played in tournaments internationally are Association Croquet (AC) and Golf Croquet (GC). AC has been played at Nottingham for the whole of our club’s history, and is a game of skill, tactics and strategy with a pattern of break play similar to snooker. GC is a more recent introduction, a more interactive and quicker game which is easy to learn, and has a greater emphasis on pure skill. We encourage newcomers to croquet to get to grips with both games, and Short Croquet (SC) which is a quicker and easier variation of AC, and perhaps also to enjoy some fun croquet games such as Pirates. 