Gateball Australia became a member of the Asia Pacific Gateball Union (APGU) in January 2020. Other members of the APGU are the Indian Gateball Union, Indonesia Gateball Association, Gateball New Zealand Inc., Macau Gateball Association, Chinese Taipei Gateball Association, Thai Gateball Union and Pakistan Gateball-Croquet Union.
The APGU 3rd Term Board of Directors meeting was held in Miaoli, Taipei on the 5th October 2024 and was attended by the National Coordinator of Gateball, Ros Crowe and Julia Tai from Southport Croquet Club.
Ros Crowe (NCGB), Julie Tai (Southport), Maddison Crowe (Toronto), and Kathie and Kevin Maloney (Canberra) attended the Asia-Pacific MiaoLi Open Gateball Championship 2024 held from the 4th to 7th October and participated in the team, triples and doubles events.
There were 64 teams for the team event and 96 teams for each of the triples and doubles events. Each event was held within a single day with teams allocated to blocks of 4 teams. Courts were grass fields. Thick fabric line tapes of 5cm were used to mark the inner field of each court only. Carpet mats were used to mark out the start area. There were 12 courts in total. Central timing was used for all games.
Each team was able to have a coach and a captain assigned to the team and only the coach or the captain could provide instruction to the team.
Relational doubles were played. The refereeing of the event was made much easier by doubles pairings being provided with allocated ball numbers.We were able to enter three teams in the Doubles event, mother and daughter pairing – Julia Tai and Wendy (who resides in Taiwan), a second mother and daughter pairing – Ros and Maddi Crowe and husband and wife, Kevin and Kathie Maloney. The doubles were our most successful event with Julia and Wendy winning one of their matches and Ros and Maddi (with Maddi as Captain) winning 2 of their 3 matches with the last game being lost by only 1 point, 14-15 in torrential rain.
It was interesting that no coin toss was conducted. Teams were allocated to either be the red or white team in the draw and were asked to prepare themselves accordingly. All teams were asked to assemble 10 minutes before their game and equipment and uniform was checked before the teams were walked out to the fields. Teams were then marched out (marching music was played at this time) to the field and lined up according to ball number. All games were then started by central timing. If a shoot-out was required at the end of a game, the teams were removed to another area to conduct the shoot-out. This allowed the next game to commence on time.
The refereeing was conducted by referees that were not part of the teams. All referees had the same uniform and had their seating area separate from the teams. Each court had 3-5 referees attached to the court and the referees remained on the same court for each day (60-80 referees) Referees were housed in a separate covered area alongside the Administration area for the event.
Players enjoyed the vibrant event with far more players than we usually see in Australia. The host and other international competitors made the Australian players feel very welcome and new friendships were formed.
