MORE GROUNDS WANTED

Evening Post, Volume 91, Issue 91, 15 October 1923, Page 8

MORE GROUNDS WANTED

A NEW COMPLICATION

THE CROQUET BOOM.

Wellington has thirty odd parks and reserves, and on most of those playing fields are laid out. Some have one play area, some three or four; some five or six, but with all of them the city is still short of football and hockey fields in winter, cricket, tennis, croquet, and other grounds in summer, and apparently the shortage will be still more acute during the next year or so, for it is an easy enough matter to bring about the formation of new clubs, but a difficult matter indeed for the City Council to provide additional playing space for those new enthusiasts.

Football went ahead at a great rate during the season just closed, cricket and tennis promise to Uecome still more popular, but the City Council has another worry before it just now—the croquet boom. A few years ago womenfolk were generally pretty well content to confine their croquet tournaments to one or two big fixtures in the year and to play home-and-home friendly matches on private lawns, but the game became too popular for a continuation of that policy, and overflowed the private lawns. Half-a-dozen new clubs were formed, and their membership is steadily growing. When club officers say that they need more grounds they mean it, and, mean,ing it, recall to the Mayor and councillors with unfailing regularity tentative promises made till a definite promise is made, and from then on recall that promise till the demands are actually fulfilled. Applications for new croquet grounds are never pigeon-holed; they are kept handy for frequent reference, perforce. VJust at present there are quite a few such applications before the Reserves Committee, but it will be no easy matter to satisfy the applicants, though the council is sympathetic. Some time ago croquet players asked for a pavilion at Kelburn, and have asked many times since, and at present plans are being prepared for the building to be submitted to the Reserves Committee for approval prior to the calling of tenders. Given a satisfactory building price, no doubt an early start will he made with the pavilion.

The plans for the new pavilion on the Basin Reserve, by the way, are also practically completed, and tenders will be called for within a few days.