The Nottingham Croquet Club is delighted to have been awarded a grant of nearly £25K for its irrigation project, from Sport England's lottery-funded Inspired Facilties Fund, as part of its Places People Play London 2012 legacy programme.
The grant will enable us to install an automatic sprinkler system for the five permanent croquet lawns, fed from the borehole that was sunk last year. Until now we have only had one manual watering point, which has severely restricted the amount of water that could be applied, resulting in the grass dying off in times of drought and maintenance being restricted. The system will be programmed to apply the optimal amount of water overnight, thus reducing evaporation and disruption to play.
It is hoped that the system can be installed before or during the early part of the season.
Patricia Duke-Cox has submitted the following report. The photo is by Duncan Hector.
Six Nottingham members had a very early start to travel to the Ross Peers leisure centre at Soham on Sunday 9th December to play on the indoor mat. Warming up and practice started at 8.30 a.m. and the matches began at 9.00. This event was the first of what is hoped will be an annual one since the Nottingham club provided a trophy in the form of a rose bowl courtesy of team captain Omied Hallam.
Nottingham teams were Sanaa and Omied Hallam, Brian Hallam and Bob Thompson, James Death and Patricia Duke-Cox. Doubles, 14-point games were played with 25 minutes being allowed for each team in each match. Their opponents were selected from experienced indoor players in the East Anglian Federation and comprised Jeff Race and Bryan Saddington, Mike Percival and Peter Allnutt, Duncan Hector and Peter Whiting.
During the day some filming took place. However it was noticed that the camera was not always on the players, as it was observed that even the big clocks timing the games were filmed! It seemed a pity that James’ jump shot was missed.
The experience was most enjoyable, but Nottingham members were beaten by a score line of 12.5 to 5.5 matches. Every team had at least one win, and only two games went to time.
