Liz reports from the lawns

As good weather was forecast a Fix It Day was organised at short notice to paint all the buildings, clear back the brambles, treat and aerate the lawns and generally get stuff done.

18 members – that’s over 50% of the membership if you take out two who are medically out of action! Wow what a turn out and EVERYTHING was done.

As Cyd said to me – we are a team. Thanks to you all.

30th October 2016

CA Diploma for the king of spades

CA Diplomas recognise those club members who have given outstanding service to croquet and have been active in club or federation affairs over a long period. The Diplomas have nothing to do with croquet prowess and everything to do with help given to other members. Click here to see a list of previous winners. That page will be updated in due course to include the 2016 winners. You may scroll down to 2008 and see The Boss getting her diploma too.

Philip gets his diploma from Quiller Barrett, the President of the CA.

The citation, written by the Chairman and Treasurer, that was submitted and will appear on the CA webpage follows:

Fylde Croquet Club would like to nominate Philip Bass for a Croquet Association Diploma for his services to Fylde Croquet Club. Philip joined in 2007 and has proved invaluable to the development of the club at its new site within South Shore Tennis Club. We started with three neglected tennis courts and one small 12 by 10 shed. Soon after we moved to the new site in 2006 it became obvious that flooding was going to be a major problem. In fact one of Philip’s first visits to the lawns in 2007 was to witness the filming of the infamous “Synchronised Croquet” Video (1289 views on YouTube to date!) In order to alleviate the problem Philip more or less single handedly dug a 68 yard ditch to drain water from the blocked underground clay pipes to a culvert in the road. He supervised the dismantling and erection of a new larger shed bought from eBay and then designed, supervised and, with help, built a very secure awning which has withstood the coastal winds admirably. Recently he has plumbed water into one of the sheds. Along with these major works Philip maintains the machinery and has designed and built an aerator from an old ride on mower.

Every project comes with engineered drawings and costings (Thank you British Aerospace for your ex-employees skills). Philip is often found down at the club mowing and strimming the areas surrounding the lawns and maintaining the lawns themselves. It is hard to convey just how much effort and sheer graft Philip has put into the club Philip would be the first to admit he has not been a natural croquet player but has worked hard at his skills when many would have given up. After some eight years of trying he is now becoming a competent player. Quite honestly the club would not be much of a force without Philip’s input. Being able to advertise and run a CA Tournament with no fear of cancellation due to weather, having suitable facilities to cater for visitors and to know the lawns are the best we can offer requires confidence in the club and Philip has provided us with all this. We recommend Philip for this award.

And of course our Honour Board is proudly updated.

22nd October 2016

Internal Golf Winners

Sue Clark, Peter Wilson and Jude Acda.

The morning was taken up with the final of the Progress Cup, with Peter scoring a perfect 4/4 in an all play all tournament with Ian, Betty, Alan and Jan.

After two blocks and then a knock out the Midgeland final was a mamouth task to win. The final took place after lunch with Sue beating John Cutler.

Jude won the Trafalgar earlier in the season.

2nd October 2016

Betty wins at Northampton

Manager Mike Hills presenting the trophy to Betty.

Betty Bates triumphed at the End of Season Weekend Handicap Tournament at Northampton. Betty was paired against old adversary Joe Lennon from Glasgow in a nail biting final. Both players went into the final undefeated on 4 wins. With 6 minutes to go the result could have gone either way but Betty held on continuing to split Joe's balls (oo er missus) ,and making a hoop at a time finally won 21 -16. Lee also played.

25th September 2016

Lee at southport

Lee was runner up in the Southport Open this weekend. The Air Show provided many distractions to overcome but Lee was on good peeling form in a strong field. Peter also played.

11th September 2016

Trafalgar Plate day

A good turn out from both experienced and newer player for the Trafalgar Plate. This year for GC as a 4 round Swiss.

Jean & Sita accessorise a la Cote D'Azur 2017 perhaps?

Jude was unbeaten.

Joint second place was Cyd and Freda with 3/4 but the worthy winner ws Jude with 4/4 scoring the winning hoop with a reverse jump at hoop 8. The actual trophy was on holiday in Spain so this (rather nice paper plate) had to do, for now.

27th August 2016

BYE BYE GIF

2010 was the year of the gif and after five years we now say goodbye to our long-standing opening view gif. If you ever wondered what and where the shots were read on. Frame one is Liz in play at Liverpool CC. Frame two Lee our Minus player in action on Lawn 3, next the Fylde Bluebell girls at the Festival. Next is a random shot of a Sunny day somewhere random but nice. The fourth frame is Martin in play at Wrest Park, captain of our victorious Longman Cup Winning team, (take a look at the trophy cabinet sometime). Then there is the famous photograph 'Fylde on the Lawn' at Wrest Park Longman Final where we were double banked on two lawns and I got this photograph by the skin of my teeth with just them in it. Last but not least Geoffrey in play at Fylde.

Welcome to Fylde Croquet

Hope you like the new page one, the photographs are by Brian Kerr from Southport & Birkdale CC.

18th August 2016

Friday Doubles

A good turn out from both experienced and newer player for a coaching session followed by an afternoon doubles tournament.

Doubles winners Sue & Sue 3/3

5th August 2016

John Henderson wins our jubilee trophy

The lawns and clubhouse were in fine form to receive our twelve visitors. Thanks to all the helpers, Carol, Freeda, Betty, Nathan and Helen Allcock (Crake). Read more...

John Henderson - Penrith CC.

31st July 2016

who ya gonna call?

Golden Boy - seeks out acorns in hoop holes, Bombshell - SupaStrimma no weed is safe, King of Spades - Let us spray.

29th July 2016

Runners up at southport

Peter W scored 4/5 in the SuperB to be the runner up in that event.

Nathan played his first advanced tournament and was runner up in the B class section.

23rd & 24th July2016

new veranda for ally pally

The new veranda was recently completed by Philip and Ian and is larger than the old one. The design uses weed retarding plastic beneath the foundations and is based on two unmodified pallets.

Alan and Ian checking the decking.

3rd July 2016

Festival overall winners

L to R James Hawkins the Festival Manager, Garry Wilson the NW Federation Chairman, the Sunday Fylde Team.

This was the 6th year that Fylde’s increased membership had enabled Liz to put out a full squad for all the Events.

Since 2011 Fylde had won 4 Individual Events but never did well enough in the other Events to come higher than 3rd.

The 22 year old trophy.

All competitive players enter with the hope of winning and we were hoping to add to the tally of individual Events this year but never dreamed of finishing the whole weekend on top. Up against the BIG THREE (Bowdon, Bury and Southport) Fylde’s membership of 35 managed to fill teams on both days with a volunteer to spare!

The Golf Team had gained in experience and were looking chipper by the end of day one with quite a few wins under their belts. The Short Team had won 2 out of 4 matches and the Advanced Team had won 2 out of 3 with the two strongest opponents to face on day 2. The Handicap Team had performed excellently winning 3 matches out of 3! This was our likely trophy to target. Day 2 saw some change of personnel. The Short team moved en bloc to play Handicap and a fresh Short Team was brought in. The Wilson car on the way in was accepting that defeat was most likely as The Advanced Team had still the two most formidable opponents to play and the Handicap Team had a Captain with a handicap of 1 ½ likely to face far too many bisques to win. However this was not what happened!

New pages have been added to the Trophy Cabinet

Read the NW Federation website for the neutral view and links to many photographs from Tony Thomas. Also take a look at Brian Kerr’s Timelapse from Saturday and Brian Kerr’s Second Timelapse.

Kerrdrone North Lawns

Kerrdrone South Lawns

25th and 26th June 2016

The Patrons lunch

By getting tickets through the Croquet Association, Liz, Catherine, Peter and Philip attended the lunch party. Watch the inteview. Fylde Croquet was proud to be represented by four members to celebrate HMQE 90th birthday. FCC acknowledges her patronage to Croquet. Our thanks to his Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales for spending his time with our members today.

Catherine and Philip were interviewed by Mel Giedroyc after speaking to Prince Harry.

Her Majesty The Queen.

His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales stoped to speak to Liz.

11th June 2016

Bishop monkton visit

Jan reports on Facebook: Fantastic week-end with our visitors from Bishop Monkton (north Yorkshire). What lovely people. Two great days of croquet and a meal for both clubs last night at the Glendower hotel in St Annes. Our new players had their first experience of playing teams from other clubs and they were brilliant. Fylde won the competition. Bishop Monkton have asked that we have a return week-end next year in their territory, time to get our passports sorted lol.

11th &12th June 2016

NATIONAL CROQUET DAY

Well the winner was definitely the weather! It certainly drove many players to the comfort of the little shade that was available! 18 members and 6 visitors turned up to play in the golf and association competitions. The short competition of 4 players, Peter, Liz, Ian and Philip was won by Philip. The golf was run as a Swiss with 21 players coming and going as they wished. To keep the flow triple banking was employed with balls flying all over the place.

The BBQ was smokin'

At the end of the day Jan, Sue Elsmore and Cyd were the only players on three wins. Sue had to leave which left Cyd and Jan to battle for the winning slot. Fortunately didn’t have to go out into the searing heat and play a final as they had already played each other with Cyd winning. Congratulations to Cyd and Philip and many thanks to Jimmy for manning the BBQ and for cooking all our food so perfectly.

5th June 2016

FCC on thats lancashire TV

Paul Rigge, Betty and Liz will be going along to Lancashire TV studios to promote croquet on Friday 3rd June at 3pm. We do not know when it will be broadcast.

Watch the inteview.

You may need to do a new channel search or retune if you have not done this for a year or so. It appears as number 7 in channel listings.

Read more...

1st June 2016

Nathan wins the Reed Cup at bowdon

Mike Steer Video, Nathan in play.

Mike Steer Video, Presentation.

Nathan achieved his Bronze Award, His Silver Award and was cut to handicap 5.

2nd May 2016

Pop Up Tournament

We are lucky in being one of the few clubs in the North West who seem to have conquered their drainage problems and thanks to the hard work of Philip Bass and the other members of the club the lawns have been playable for most of the winter.

Five minus players (basically the Lancashire team, Hartley, Hawkins, Holmes, Nicholson and Rigge) together with both (Ex Lancs) Wilsons decided to play an impromptu tournament at Fylde over the weekend. As one of the players said “It is difficult to negotiate a whole weekend off to play and is therefore a shame to have nowhere to compete”.

Warm help-yourself-whenever casseroles were provided giving the new kitchen a first event (It is brilliant). Both days had a fair dose of triples, Sun and Matt's beer. More than one of the players complained of sunburn (or was it wind burn). It was run as an all play all with only the non-played match being Wilson vs Wilson. There were many amusing incidents, grievous peg-outs and crazy misses along the way, even a 26 yard hoop and the whole tournament was played in Great Spirit with Nick playing his usual entertaining cat and mouse game with Liz Wilson (well I like to give you a chance!).

There were four sextuple attempts from Matt but the tea lady scored a hat-trick. The “final” was between Paul Rigge and Matt Holmes with Matt running out the winner.

Manager James Hawkins entertained and managed in equal measures. Being one of the NW hardest hitters the AMD tie break of hitting across two lawns, jumping the ball stop and finishing in the ditch was luckily not required.

16/17th April 2016

Recommended reading

16th April 2016

Ball in ditch? No Problem!

This gizmo will recover any balls (reckless enough to have jumped our new ball stops) from the ditch. There is an extending mechanism for those hard to get at places.

5th April 2016

Fix it

The picture shows Ian’s garden wall sporting the new hoop plants!

What a busy Day! Team one started at 11am at Ian’s garage and had 36 hoops and 12 ball carriers painted by 12.45!
Thank you to Jan, Betty, Sue, Jean, Sue and Jude. Apparently Ian and Jimmy “supervised” from the house.
Team two started at 1.30 and had lawns mowed, ball stops finished, painting finished and some tidying and gardening done by 4.30. Thanks to Philip, Liz, Peter, Alan, Geoffrey. Lee and Carol. Only a couple of weeks to go until the lawns open.
If the weather is anything like today it should be good!

13th March 2016

Water on tap

Philip runs the first water at the sink opening ceremony.

Yes, we have splashed out and put a sink in the Croquet shed. Since the picture was taken the wall has been painted and tiled. The hoops are currently off site being painted. Several mallets are also off site having the grips replaced.

9th March 2016

Working On every day

Work is continuing almost every day towards preparing the lawns, equipment and clubhouse for the new season. These events are advertised through email. However if you are able to help at a different time, please contact me.

26th February 2016

Working Pzrty

Progresss made on new ball stops and ditch. Typing course starts next week.

24th January 2016

Colour Vision

Following a long process of agreement through several CA committees these recommendations were accepted Nem Con at the CA council meeting.

20th January 2016

Leonard Ainsworth (1932 -2015)

Fylde Croquet Club announces the passing of Leonard Ainsworth. Leo has been involved in croquet for over a quarter of a century. Leo was instrumental in the 2007 Longman Cup team success and has helped to secure a number of titles for the club.

A retired Industrial chemist and excellent chess player. Leo has one daughter, one son and two grandsons.

He will be sadly missed by all who knew him.

At Hurlingham, photograph: B Bates.

Leonard’s Funeral has been arranged for Thursday 17th December at 12 noon at Lytham Crematorium. There will be a wake afterwards at the Lindun Hotel, 63-67 South Promenade, Lytham Saint Annes FY8 1LZ Family flowers only – donations to Trinity Hospice c/o Horsfield Funeral Directors.

If you will attend the wake please let Betty know.

7th December 2015

The 2015 News has been Archived Here

19th January 2016