Croquet Has Become A Big Hit

November 20, 2018

Every Tuesday morning, the lowest green at the Kingaroy Bowls Club is taken over by a wild bunch wielding wooden mallets and hitting colourful balls.

The players are all keen members of the Kingaroy Croquet Club which recently underwent a growth spurt, picking up six new members in a very short time.

Club president Robert Green said membership was now 16 but more were always welcome to come along from 9:00am to noon on Tuesdays.

One of these new members is former local MP Dolly Pratt who admitted that before she started playing she thought the game was only for old people.

Now she thinks about it a lot differently.

“It’s full of strategy, a mind challenge,” she said.

“It’s really competitive. There’s a lot of mind games going on!”

Croquet has been described as a type of “ground billiards”, and the concept is a lot like snooker, blocking opponents’ shots and knocking balls out of the way.

The Kingaroy club plays several different croquet games, including “golf”, “Aussie golf”, “ricochet” and the more formal “Association” style.

Club captain Jenny Bickerton, from Kumbia, has been a member of the club for six years.

She encouraged people who had never played to come along and have a try.

“Golf croquet is a good one to start newcomers on,” she said. “There’s always people here who will help you.”

Doug Findlay started playing with the club in 2004, about a year after it shifted from Memorial Park to the Kingaroy Bowls Club.

At that time, they played on one of the bowling greens, but a few years later they took over responsibility for looking after the lower green at the club.

The greenkeepers who keep the lawn shipshape are Terry Kearney, from Kumbia, and the club’s oldest member, Ted Black, from Kingaroy, who is 90.

They’re both keen players.

Just don’t suggest to them that croquet is only a game for old people …