A successful 4-hour afternoon event with a later wine/cheese reception was held at a garden in a condominium using a short court with lovely views overlooking Guincho Beach. Young and old alike enjoyed golf croquet training & games, with a New Zealand coach providing the training, and helping many who had not played for a while, showing them the latest plays.

After making sure the lawn was mowed tight enough that the 9 cm color-coded balls could roll straight on the grass, teams of 4 played first to 3 hoops games. The more recent variant, Golf Croquet, went down well and everyone enjoyed this lively, competitive, and social version with it’s faster, simpler play. There were many fun comments among the players, and the next game is planned for September 21st.

Andrew Heaton (tel: (+351) 967 482 684. walheaton@outlook.com), continues to look for a team to help plan a local club venue in light of international requests to develop local competition & expand national competitive capability. The World Croquet Federation would like to see Portugal develop on the map of international competitions and has offered start-up funding to help develop local lawns and promote national interest.

Nearby Contact: Wm. Andrew Heaton (Secretary Portuguese Croquet Assoc...walheaton@outlook.com).

A few links for deeper background:

https://oakleywoods.com/pages/history-of-croquet

http://www.oxfordcroquet.com/history/origins1.asp

http://www.beverleycroquet.org.uk/thegame.html