Editorial - Gateball
A cold January Saturday saw twenty or so Surbiton Club croquet players being introduced to the intricacies of gateball - a game involving mallets, balls and hoops played by millions of people throughout Asia, South America and Australia.
So what did we have to play with?
The mallets were light-weight and puny – about 30” long with 1¼” diameter 7.5” heads. They had little weight in the head and hence were difficult to swing. 10 numbered balls (5 white and 5 red, ~3” diameter) seemed to be the children of an illicit liaison between a billiard ball and a fugitive small croquet ball from a garage forecourt set. Then the hoops, three of them, gaped 10” wide and ~8” tall – so big for such small balls! Two gateball courts will readily fit on a standard croquet lawn. Alex Parks, the affable Australian gateball coach, brought enough kit for all and instructed with evangelical zeal and complete disregard for the freezing temperatures. For those interested in the overview of the game see the article by James Hawkins in the Croquet Gazette (2002) and Alex’s web site http://www.gateball.org.uk/.
So what’s it all about?
First impressions are that it has similarities with snooker and it is heaps more interesting than hoop ball (aka golf croquet if you wish to perpetuate the near oxymoronic misnomer). Why snooker? With so many balls on the lawn there are not the formal set-pieces of Association games such as the four-ball break. There are still croquet-like actions: the equivalents of roquets, croquets (called 'sparking') and continuation strokes after hoop runs. Indeed some of its practices seem to lurk between the American and Association rules. It’s a sequence game, balls cannot be rushed off the lawn and you can end up dead on balls across turns.
The fun and the tactics arise from the consequences of 'roqueting'. The first mind-bender is that the roqueted ball is brought back to the striker’s ball after the roquet – its where your ball ends up in a roquet which is significant. Once the balls are arranged for the croquet the stroke your place your foot firmly on your ball and strike it sending the other ball to somewhere useful – this is normally off the lawn if it is an opponent’s ball or towards other balls of your colour for those of your own side. A ball sent off the lawn remains off the court and cannot roquet or hoop run on its next turn - a sin bin for balls! If you combine actions which earn a continuation stroke – say a hoop run in which your ball collides with two balls on the far side – you store up the continuation strokes. By accumulating these free strokes a good player can hop around the court like a practiced draughts player sparking the opponents off the lawn and peeling their side’s balls through their hoops.
Short time limits, typically 30 minutes per game and 10 seconds for each stroke make this a fast-paced game. The teams of up to 5 players are organised by their captain who guide’s his teams tactics but there is no handicap system.
Should we get interested?
Certainly! An introduction to the game is a great focal point event and fun. It has lots of strategy separating it from more banal mallet recreations. It is unfortunate that standard croquet kit cannot be substituted. A simple gateball set would be in the order of a few hundred pounds. If you are interested in trying it yourself see the information on http://www.gateball.org.uk/.
Ian 20.i.9
FAQ: Lawn Speeds –The 'Plummer'
WHAT? The ‘plummer’ is a unit of lawn speed measurement allowing the speeds of various lawns to be compared.
WHY? Are today's croquet players better than those in history? Why were so few peels done at a particular tournament? Are modern lawns easier?
These questions are near impossible to answer when we have no measure of the difficulty of lawns. There are many factors affecting play such as: how flat the lawn is, the width & sturdiness of hoops, the texture and variation of grass, etc. The aim of measuring lawn speeds is to quantify one aspect of lawn difficulty.
The difficulty of playing croquet increases as a lawn becomes very fast (smooth) or very slow (shaggy). A lawn is very slow/unplayable if it is 8 plummers or less, or very fast /difficult if greater than 13 plummers.
HOW? The speed of a lawn is taken as the time for a ball struck the length of the lawn from the boundary line at one end to just stop on the boundary line at the other (35 yards). The time in seconds is the plummer value and is generally quoted to the half second. In practice balls will stop near the far boundary and their length can be estimated. A graph on the back of an envelope can be produced to interpolate the time at 35 yards. More information here.
Editorial - Croquet in Japan
Enthusiastic members meet in Tokyo every weekend throughout the year to play croquet in the Showa Kinen Park, Tokyo. Their club boasts two full-size lawns: a splendid artificial surface and a turf covered one. The artificial surface was playing at ~12 Plummers.
The Club members are extremely dedicated. One travels for two hours to get to the lawns and they play in all weathers. This February I was kindly entertained by the Club in absolutely freezing conditions with a dust storm adding to a huge wind chill. At its worst the wind stirred a stationary ball and moved it 18".
The Clubs boast some expert players, indeed Masaaki Yamada had just returned from the World Championships in New Zealand. I was easily defeated on the testing surface by my host, Satoru Oshida, who made my visit possible.
The Club has welcomed famous croquet names in the past including Bernard Neal and Stephen Mulliner - to say nothing of Russell Bretherton whose mallet is still in the club (intentionally left or lost, it is difficult to decide).
The Japanese Croquet Association (http://www.croquet.jp/, translated here) encourages croquet in Japan. It holds annual competitions and Satoru Oshida has translated the Beginners' Coaching Notes into Japanese. There were two eager novices braving the bitterly cold weather during my visit.
The members kindly invited me to join them in a BBQ accompanied by beers, an excellent Riesling (!) and Johnnie Walker Red Label - true croquet players! Mr Takano, croquet player turned chef, produced steaks, sausages, scallops, pork, cabbage stir fry, noodles ... all helped to warm us up.
I am extremely grateful to the Japanese Croquet Association and its members for giving me a most pleasant and memorable experience during my visit.
Members of the public can rent the lawns in the park for ~£1.50/hr with equipment included.
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