Equipment and clothing

Mallets

In general you don’t need any equipment of your own but if you want to become a serious player or play at another club then we recommend that you order a mallet of your own.

It will (hopefully) fit you like a glove, feel comfortable, play consistently and last many years (20 or more) so a careful choice is needed.

We have a number of mallets in the Ball Store that you can use to try out, though they’re mostly Hobbs mallets and he’s sadly not with us any more. But they will give you a feel for the right length of handle and length of head, possibly also its weight.

Some members have different styles of mallets, so why not ask them nicely if you can try theirs.
Obviously, the longer you can try it the better feel for it you will have.

A good description of the difference between different kinds of mallet can be seen on the Oxford Croquet site.

The October 2023 edition of the Croquet Gazette contains a number of adverts for mallets:

The Croquet England shop stocks George Wood mallets costing between £200 and £460 for an airline version.

In addition Dave Trimmer produces a mallet that seems to have found favour with the top competitive players. However, they’re usually on long lead times (6-9 months).

A 2022 summary of the top 10 mallets in the world is here

Clothing

Suitable shoes are any with a soft flat sole, e.g. a trainer.

Clothes are generally casual. But if you play in matches or tournaments you will need to wear predominately white clothing. Although most clothing outlets can supply white short and long-sleeved shirts and shorts you may find it difficult to find white trousers, jackets and especially wet-weather clothing. You can buy these from the Croquet England shop if you can’t buy them elsewhere.

We have a supplier who can provide white clothing with our logo on, and your name too if you want. Prices are about £15 for a polo-shirt or sweater. Please talk to the Chairman about purchasing these.

Some people dislike playing with wet hands in the rain, so you can get some sports gloves (usually golf ones) for this purpose; some warm ones also exist for winter play.

Badges

If you’re representing the club we would appreciate you wearing an identifying badge with our logo on your clothing. We have these in several forms:

  • recommended: large woven badges @ £3.50 (each member can have one of these free of charge)
  • small enamel badges @ £2.00 (each member can have one of these free of charge)
  • 56mm tin badges @ £2.00
  • 32mm ones @ £1.50

in the Stationery drawer in the Kitchen area of the club house – please put the money in the tea/coffee pot. The small badges are really only suitable for use on caps or hats.

Ball Markers

If you’re playing on a lawn at the same time as another game then you may need to move a ball from the other game, so that you can continue without interruption. To do this you need to mark the place of the ball with a marker. DO NOT USE A COIN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES AS SOMETIMES THESE GET ACCIDENTALLY LEFT BEHIND AND RUIN THE LAWN MOWER.

Suitable plastic markers costing 10p each are available in a jar in the club house.

It is recommended that you carry some with you if you’re playing at another club.

Divot repairers

If you damage the lawn with your mallet, e.g. a jump shot that goes wrong, please don’t just press on the grass to try to fix it. You need to tease out the ends of a cut first so that these can be butted against each other and then smooth out to make a proper invisible repair.

A golf divot repairer can be used to more easily tease out the ends that have curled underneath the edges. These cost £3.50 and are held in the stationery drawer (they’ve got a CA logo on).  You can just use it once and replace it if you feel you don’t need one of your own.

Books

We have a library of books for you to look at and borrow, but you may feel that you need your own copy of a particular book, especially of the laws of the game! You can get them all from the Croquet England shop.