SOME CROQUET CHAMPIONS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13924, 24 December 1910, Page 10

SOME CROQUET CHAMPIONS.

A .BRILLIANT NEW ZEALANI>ER

(specially written for "the press. - ')

(.BY G. M. BITTERWORTH.)

I have been casting my eye over some croquet papers, and one tiling strikes m< , . which must often have .struck others, and that is how much more do we New Zealandcrs borrow from Home than from Australia. For forty ot

fifty years we have played croquet herein a fashion, but the vast improvement in play that lias taken place in Melbourne and Sydney has neither exeitod general interest in New Zealand nor raised the btandard of play here.. And yet for a good many years the best Australian players have been fit to cope, on level terms with the best Engli&ti players, whilst hi such matter? a.s reduction of the width of hoops, improvement of the match settings by theelimination of the turning-peg, and-the .steady improvement in the standard of match play, which the constant employment of the various croquet practice openings foster, Australia has for a good m:»ny years led the way. Has any New Ztaiander returned from Sydney or .Melbourne a polished first-class croquet player, able to give Mr K. H. Izard a game, Mr Izard having come back to us after a three years' trip Home, , on© of the nnait croquet player* in the world r , I confess 1 cannot put my fingers on any such person. Among other things. I hare been turning over tho pages of the Year Hook of tho Croquet Association for 1910, the offspring of the untiring efforts of the late Mr W. H. Peel. 1 find affiliated, to it tiie Melbourne Croquet Club and the Croquet Association of New South Wai c>, but not a single New Zealand club, and yet affiliation only costs a guinea a year and confers on the affiliated club all sorts of privileges, including free access Ito the ground at the four Croquet Aβ.----i Kociation tournaments played .at Hoet hampton

As far as I can judge, after perusing the \ear Hook, and assuming that the games wore played, as all games are played at Home, on full-sized lawns, those of us who represent our clubs here as first and second strings, would receive at, least seven or eight bisques from the members of that famous trio. R. C. J. Beaton, K. H. Izard. and C\ L. O'Callaghnn, wlio.?e handicap is oniv and a half bisques behind scratch. Of Mr Beaton i have already spoken. To Mr O'Calloghun 1 propose to derote as nvuch space as is practicable. Of Mr Izard, who, without employing woids of hypereole. has made ISiew Zealand as famous in the croquet world ao Anthony Wilding has in the lawn tennis world. I will tell the little that I know.

Mr O'Callagdian has at last succeeded in winning the blue ribbon of croquet, the all England croquet championship, and he is, with the possible exception of Mr Beaton, the most conspicuous figure in the croquet world. His handicap is: —1 J bisques, that is, he and Mr Izard and Mr Beaton have to_ enter tournaments prepai'ed to give fairish players 13J bisques. Ho also has won the Beddow Cup, now renamed the Champion Cup, and in the same season (1910) won the Gentleman's Gold Medal and the Gold Cup. This is an unparalleled record, though it is but fair to Miss. Gower to state that she won the first three events in 1004 and 1905, that the Gold Cup was not then in existence.

Next coming to Mr Izarcl hjs performances are very remarkable, especially considering how comparatively limited have been his opportunities of indulging in first class play. He first entered for the championship , in 1907, and was only beaten in the semi-final; in 1908 Cyril Corbally defeated him in "the final; in 1909 he again got to the ■semi-final. In 1908, and again in 1909 he was picked by the Croquet Association Committee as one of the ten best players to play for the Champion Cup, and on each occasion finished 1 third. But his- best successes have been achieved at Eastbourne, where the Gold Cup is-competed for annually. Eastbourne occupies precisely the same place in croquet circles as in those of fawn tennis. An English" September at this glorious south-coast wateringplaco, the creation of the late Diike of Devonshire, can never be forgotten by Sny tennis or croquet player who has figured at it. The entries are pnenomenal, both for quantity and quality, and it being the last .of tl»o great tournaments, the events are played out without any undue hurry. I have always considered that the Eastbourne Lawn Tennis Tournament of • 1892, at which (if my memory does not deceive mc) Ernest Renshaw pulled off the first class handicap, owing 50 (or was it half 50) produced the finest collection of players that ever came together at a meeting, and represented the high water mark of English lawn tennis. From Eastbourne the tennis players flit away to Switzerland, Italy, and the Portuguese meeting. The croquet players nut aside their mallets for the winter, both sets of players coming together in the following spring for'the delicious Riviera meetm-s. September being an English holiday month, and perhaps the finest in the whole year, the entire croquet world flocks to Eastbourne for the tournament. Here Mr Izard was semi-finalist at the first attempt, and won the cup in 1908, and again in 1909. Many good judges think that the play is brighter at Eastbourne than at any other meeting, as all the players come to it at the top of their form, and the width of the hoops has never been reduced there below four inches. My readers may, perhaps, ask. "How comes it that Mr Izard, who has never won tne championship or the champion cun. is handicapped back to the scratch mark in company with Messrs Beaton and O'Callaghan, who have won both, and behind Miss Gower, with her wonderful record of championship wins.- . The consistency of Mr Izard'.s play has rendered no other course pos- . siblo. When he first defeated Mr Beaton on level terms he was scratch, and Mr Beaton 1J behind scratch. Throe successive wins over Mr Beaton forced Mr Izard back to Mr Beaton's mark, where ho remained until he left England for Wellington. But where is Mr Cyril Corbally? I regret that a difference of opinion betweon that famous player and tho Croqnct Association hns caused the popular, and possibly slightly hot-headed Irishman, to erase his name for the moment from the Associates' roll. - 'Tan-. taone animis coelestibus irac?" we may well ask of ourselves. However, Mr Corbally returned to the Irish lists in August last, and to the delight of his numberless friends, defeated the present champion, Mr O'Callaghan. very decisively. May the breach speedily bo completely healed. I reckon it as. a piece of conspicuous good fortune that Mr Izard's return to his home at Wellington should coincide with the first tournament of the Canterbury Croquet Association. As an official referee of the Croauot Association his services will be invaluable, and to see him play ought to prove a very great attraction. A player, and by no means a poor one, told mc once that Mr Izard is "a veritable wizard with the balls; they do precisely what he tells them." It almost goes without saying that he will annex for the first year the championship trophy presented by tho President. Mr Croxtou. and, of course, if the matches were for the."best of three games, ,, and on full "sized lawns, no one could possibly succeed against him. But on our small lawns all players have a tendency to come to a level, and there is such a glorious uncertainty over one single game of croquet, as opposed to the best of three, that our local players nre sure to take heart, and feel thatone or other of them may have a chance of overthrowing Mr Izanl; whose ought to give a great impetus to Canterbury croquet.