Until April 2022 Derby was one of the largest cities in England without a croquet club. We approached Derby West End Bowls club and asked them if they would consider taking on croquet as a second sport. We met with members of their committee and demonstrated the type of hoops, mallets and balls we would be using and they agreed to give us the use of one lawn with the understanding that the bowls club would have priority on that lawn in the event of them holding a major competition.
We then joined the Croquet Association and the East Midlands croquet Federation and both organisations were most helpful in supplying us with the necessary starting equipment. The CA gave us a set of hoops, 4 mallets and a set of balls and the EM Federation loaned us four mallets a set of corner flags and three sets of balls.
With help from the EM Federation, we were able to raise enough funds to buy a second set of hoops and another set of corner flags. We were able to set up two croquet lawns of 5/7 the full size and pretty soon had 16 members, most of whom had never played croquet before all arranging games with each other via Whatsapp and they were all getting on with each other and really enjoying themselves.
In 2023 we plan to mark out two larger lawns and attract more new members.