Recently, South Australian Gateball player Barry Jennings and his partner Lorraine visited Yoshihiko Karaue in his home town Shobara, Japan and were lucky enough to play in a local event. Barry met Yoshihiko when he and other Japanese Gateball players travelled to Australia in 2023 to play in the Australian Gateball Championships. Thanks to Barry for providing us an account of their adventures.
“Once I gained a spot in the Golf Croquet World Championships, it was always the plan to visit my partner Lorraine’s “family” in Japan and, while there, travel to Hiroshima with the idea of possibly finding a club to play some gateball at.
Having met Yoshihiko Karaue at the Australian Gateball Championships in Wodonga in 2023, and believing he lived in Hiroshima city, we made contact through Lorraine’s “daughter” who made several phone calls while we were staying with her. At the end of one of those, we got the details, “OK, you are staying with Yoshihiko and he has arranged for you to join his club, and you are playing in a tournament on Monday. He will pick you up from the train.”
When we left Oita and travelled to Fukuyama (in Hiroshima Prefecture) we were duly met by Yoshihiko and it became clear that he had driven a couple of hours to do so as he drove us back to his hometown, Shobara. While there he showed us his club with its’ 6 courts, some courts under cover and some that would have been very interesting to play on, not at all like the beautifully groomed croquet lawns I’m used to playing on. He then showed us the indoor venue that we’d be playing on in 2 days time.
I should mention that shortly after getting on the train from Oita to Hiroshima, I realised that my stick handle, nicely packed with a mallet handle was still in our room back in Oita .We had been using the handles as walking sticks until JAL decided they were dangerous so needed to be put through as extra luggage rather than carried on the plane. I can vouch for Japan Post because, after a late afternoon phone call Saturday to Lorraine’s “daughter,” said parcel was delivered to Yoshihiko’s house by 9am the next day.
We were joined by another member of Hiroshima gateball, Hiroko, for sightseeing and meals and we all stayed in the first of 3 hotels Yoshihiko had booked for us. The hotels were chosen so we had minimal travel to whatever was planned for the next day.
On the Sunday afternoon we called in to the venue of the upcoming tournament and watched some young players playing singles and thought we were going to be well out of our depth if they were going to be playing in the tournament. They were brilliant. We were assured they wouldn’t be and that they were indeed some of Japan’s elite players.
Monday morning we headed back to the venue where there were 8 teams entered. Our team was captained by the President of Gateball Japan, who thankfully spoke some English and we managed to do roughly what was asked of us most of the time.
It was interesting to see the different styles with some of the players being ambidextrous and others with strange (to me) grips – playing with right handed stance but a left handed Solomon grip.
We didn’t win the chocolates, or in this case, drinks, but we held our own in the competition. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience &, most of all the very generous and warm hospitality shown to us by all those involved, especially Yoshihiko and Hiroko.”
