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Some changes to the Laws of Association Croquet have been adopted for the 2008 season. See the reference section for a summary and links to the full text.
The World Golf Croquet Championship is now in progress in Cape Town. Scotland's representative, Jamieson Walker, played JC and JC of New Zealand (Jenny Clarke and John Christie) in his first two matches, taking each of them to three games. [He was initially reported as winning the first of these matches, but in fact lost the deciding game; the correction appeared on 10 March.] Full results can be found on the WCF website.
The SCA Executive has conferred honorary life membership upon Tremaine and Gail Arkley, in recognition of their very generous donation of several early Scottish croquet trophies - described in David Appleton's article The early history of the Scottish Croquet Championship. They also offered a croquet painting (c.1867) by the Scottish artist William Crawford, and when the SCA had to decline this (being unable to store and display it properly) they offered it to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery; the painting is expected to appear in due course in the Gallery's new section on Scottish Victorian sport.
The SCA Yearbook for 2008 is now being distributed to members. The editor apologises for an error on page 21: in fact the 2006 MacRobertson Shield team was not the first one to include two Scots, as Martin Murray and Andrew Hope were in the GB team in 1982.
Scotland's Keith Aiton beat Toby Garrison (NZ) and Ian Dumergue (Australia) in the first two rounds of the World Championship knockout and will play Robert Fulford in a quarter-final tomorrow. Jonathan Kirby went out in the first round, as did defending champion Reg Bamford. See the Championship site for details. (Update: Fulford won the quarter-final before losing to the eventual winner, Chris Clarke, in the semi-final.)
The World Association Croquet Championship is now in progress in Christchurch, New Zealand. Results can be found on the World Championship website. Scotland's players are Keith Aiton and Jonathan Kirby. (Update, 3 February: after seven rounds of block play both have now qualified for the knockout stage.)
The Meadows Croquet Club organised a very successful Burns Supper, on the day after the poet's birthday, which was attended by more than 30 people including members of the Edinburgh, Kinross and Glasgow Clubs. See here for a few photographs.
See the events page.
This is it!
By the generosity of Gail and Tremaine Arkley of Independence, Oregon, the SCA recently received several trophies from the early years of Scottish croquet, including the silver cups presented to the winners of the Scottish Championship in 1906 and 1913. Photographs of these and of other historic trophies in the possession of the SCA, along with descriptions of the early championships held in Moffat and at Craiglockhart in Edinburgh, can be found in David Appleton's article, The early history of the Scottish Croquet Championship.
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