Clare Poole

On 14th March the gateball community was greatly saddened to hear of the death of one of our highly regarded ‘originals’, Clare Poole.

Clare’s involvement with gateball commenced in the mid-1990s, following visits to Sydney and demonstrations of gateball by Japanese and Korean tourists. Gateball became a regular weekly game at Clare’s club, Epping.

In 1998, following an invitation from the World Gateball Union, the Australian Croquet
Association sent two teams to the Gateball World Championship in Hawaii. Clare was a captain of one of these teams. She also attended the 1999 President’s Cup in Taiwan.

Considerable enthusiasm for the adoption of Gateball as a supported code of the ACA resulted from the Hawaii event and prompted the inaugural Australian Gateball Championship, held in 1999. Clare and her husband Ken were involved with the organisation and management of this event.

Then, in 2001, the second Australian Gateball Championship was held in Melbourne and Clare’s Epping team was among the 15 entries, which also included 3 from Peru, 2 from NZ and 6 from Japan.

From that time, Clare and a small band of players kept the gateball flame burning in NSW, until a young group of players from Canberra took up the baton in the mid 2000s. Clare’s Epping players formed the backbone of a composite team which won the NSW championship at Maitland in 2014, the first time players from Greater Sydney had won the NSW Championships.

Epping Croquet Club celebrated 20 years of gateball in Australia on Sunday 25th September 2016. With Ken’s superb catering and Clare’s smiling presence, it was a wonderful occasion.

Clare was regarded by many of us as the ‘mother’ of gateball in Australia. Her strategic understanding of the game made her a valued captain and her patient coaching skills were welcomed by new players. She was always willing to observe and make useful comments. “Low, slow and with flow – and halve your backswing!”

Even when her deteriorating mobility made active participation impossible, Clare never lost her keen interest in the game and the people who now enjoy it here. She was held in high regard by those who knew her and will be greatly missed.

Vale Clare.

If anyone wishes to share memories of Clare, please post your comments below.

Penny Park

Rain Bomb

Our thoughts go out to all those Queensland clubs affected by the recent wild weather. The picture of the beautiful lawns and clubhouse at McIlwraith yet again underwater brought back memories of the 2011 floods.

We have been told of fellow gateballers having to sandbag their homes, and having cars and houses inundated.

Stay sane and safe everyone.

We are all looking forward to playing at the Nationals in the Sunshine State!

John Park
National Coordinator of Gateball

Tavender Trophy Report – Canberra Croquet Club

It was a fitting result to have our two newest gateball recruits share Runners Up and Winning positions in the Sunday November 21 Tavender Trophy Annual High/Low Doubles event.

Margaret Richardson and Glen Whitehead gave a very clinical display of skill and strategy to win the final 19 points to 9 over Ralph Richardson and Judy Tier. With Glen’s accurate bombards the opposing team quickly realised it was pretty difficult to score points with their few white balls on the court.

30 to 50 millimetres of rain and storms were forecast for the weekend and a postponement loomed. Fortunately this weather moved north and with 3 courts in play we completed our games in a morning of dry and cloudy conditions.

Thank you Susie Linge and Gabby Walsh for so masterly managing scoreboards and Peter Tavender, the trophy donor, for presenting the trophy to the winners.

Results can be viewed here

Judy Tier, Canberra Croquet Club

Winners: Margaret Richardson and Glen Whitehead with Calvin & Liam and Peter Tavender

Runners Up: Ralph Richardson and Judy Tier

Another Gateball Brainteaser

Geoff Crook from South Australia has sent us another conundrum from a recent game at Woodville. Please put your answers and comments in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box below.

The last 3 minutes

After a gap of at least 12 months, Woodville hosted a Sunday afternoon of Gateball on 7 November 2021.  The last game of the day was pretty unusual, with Red storming to a 15-1 lead after 12 minutes, and White’s solitary ball in play was an out-ball [Ball 6].

However, White fought back and the result was the position below – 5 points behind with a couple of minutes left.

Ball 10 is to play, and assume Ball 6 plays last. 

Can White win?  Please explain the sequence of play leading to your answer.

Southport Croquet Club

Southport Croquet Club’s publicity machine has been working overtime and we thought you would like to see the recent story featured on ABC Gold Coast.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-18/southport-croquet-club-set-to-expand/13158548

And Jim and Barbara Northcott have given us more information about gateball at the club.

From a small number of members keen to learn about gateball back in 2006/7 the numbers of gateball players at Southport CC have grown to 24 members who play this code of croquet. Our initial coach was the legendary, Keith McLeod, who is still as enthused as has always been, and a much loved member of the club. His knowledge and expertise is widely shared and he inspires everyone. 

In the news item the first person to speak is Jim Northcott, Club President, who plays gateball and is a Level 1 referee and a coach. Listening to the story you are introduced early on to Beryl Phillips who has been so keen to play gateball. She explains so well why she loves the game. Trudy Cummins also in her 90s is a regular player. Our young boy Ronan Chilton is entering his first year of competition and joins his brother Ethan in travelling to compete.

Speaking of competitions, Southport will send 3 teams to play in the McIlwraith Gateball Challenge 13-14th March. Then comes the annual Triples Competition at Southport on Sunday April 11th.  The inaugural triples competition in Australia began in 2012 at Southport and this is the 10th year it has been held – 2020 had to be cancelled. 

The next set of competitions at Southport will be the MSOB Gateball Teams and Doubles Competition that is scheduled from 26-28th June. All registered ACA players are welcome to attend and can contact the club at southport@croquetqld.org