Author: Debbie Lines

The first Nordic championships were held at Moss Norway 15th and 16th May 2005. Both Association and Golf croquet championships were played.

Both events were held as doubles with two pairs each from Sweden, Norway and Finland. A Danish team also attended and took part in Jeloey Grand Open, the open part of the tournament in Association, Golf Croquet and a nine hoop event played to Norway Standard Rules.

Most croquet in Scandinavia is of the nine hoop variety. So it was quite a step to play the Nordic championships in association and golf forms. The four young players representing Finland had only played extreme croquet before this event.

In Denmark a nine hoop version is played with short mallets and only one hand is allowed in the swing. They have an extremely active tournament circuit and have over 6000 registered players and very good coaching scheme in place.

Sweden are already members of the WCF, Norway and Finland have applied for membership and we also expect Denmark to apply shortly. Next years event will be held in Sweden when also Denmark and maybe Iceland, will compete.

Here are the results of the competitions:

Nordic Championship 2005

Association Croquet
1. Sweden, Thomas C Ericsson and Mikael Agebjörn
2. Norway, Tom Larsen and Roar Michalsen

Golf Croquet
1. Sweden, Simon Carlsson and Ulf Söderberg
2. Norway, Tom Larsen and Roar Michalsen

Jeloey Grand Open

Association Croquet
1. Timothy King, England
2. Eddy Holmboe, Hjulmakerveien Crocket Club, Norway

Golf Croquet
1.Timothy King, England
2. Birger Stene, Hjulmakerveien Crocket Club, Norway

Nine Hoop Croquet, Norwegian Standard
1. Mikael Agebjørn, Argus Croquet, Sweden
2. Rune Johansen, Hjulmakerveien Crocket Club, Norway
3. Steinar Olsen, Hjulmakerveien Crocket Club, Norway
4. Birger Stene, Hjulmakerveien Crocket Club, Norway
5. Roar Michalsen, Hjulmakerveien Crocket Club, Norway
23rd May 2005

WCF has two new members!
At the WCF Council Meeting held on 8th August 2005 two new members were admitted to membership when Norway and Finland were accepted as Observer nations.

Norwegian Croquet Federation President Tore Gulbrandsen (pictured right) said, “This is an important point in Norwegian Croquet. We have 20 clubs with over 100 members centered around the South East of Oslo. Mostly we play a ten hoop, 2 peg version of the sport, although the “Association” variation is growing in popularity. The quality of the lawns is not as good as in the UK, as you can imagine with our climate.

The Federation itself is 31 years old and later this month we will be holding our first ever Norwegian National Championship”.

The WCF now has 26 member nations.
10th August 2005

The two brother nations, Norway and Sweden, met for the second time this year on Saturday 10th of September 2005. Jointly staged by the Passus Croquet Club and The Swedish Croquet Association it took place in Borås, Sweden. The event took place in Majorslunden where two lawns in 2/3 size had been laid out. These were of good quality and shows that even in the Nordic countries it will be possible to maintain lawns of almost international standard.

The first battle between the two countries were staged in Moss at Jeloey Grand Tournament as part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the breakup of the union between the two brother nations in 1905, but it almost drowned in the Nordic Championships. Then it was staged by The Croquet Society, which is 35 years old this year, and Jeloey Croquet Club.

The event was played like the Davis cup with two single games, one double and then two singles again, in Association Croquet and Golf Croquet. The Swedes had 4 players in each type as they had two single players and one team, while the Norwegians had two players playing all games in each type.

All Norwegians players only learned the game in April and had had never played on such short grass before. This was also the situation for some of the Swedes.

Norway won the Golf Croquet tournament to the astonishment of a lot, especially the Swedes. The Norwegians won all singles, but as they had never played together as a team, they lost the doubles games.

Birger Stene took the first point of the Tournament whilst it was clear that the Norwegian players had amazing eyesight, Nils Naper hit every ball he aimed at in his single matches!

In Association Croquet Sweden won, but also here the Norwegians improved.

In the last single match even Simon Carlsson, the Swedish Champion, got problems. He won by only two points, but Steinar Olsen had the lead for a long time. Roar Michalsen even won his last game versus Jan-Åke Lundberg (the first Swedish player to participate in an international tournament).

The results:
GOLF CROQUET
Norway – Sweden 4-1
Ulf Söderberg – Nils Naper 1-7
Jan-Åke Lundberg – Birger Stene 2-5
Jörgen Larsson / Peter Grönborg
– Nils Naper /Birger Stene 7-1
Ulf Söderberg – Birger Stene 3-7
Jan-Åke Lundberg – Nils Naper 3-7

ASSOCIATION CROQUET
Sweden – Norway 4-1
Jan-Åke Lundberg – Steinar Olsen 26-9
Simon Carlsson – Roar Michelsen 25-10
Janne Högrell / Thomas C Ericsson
– Roar Michelsen / Steinar Olsen 14-4
Simon Carlsson – Steinar Olsen 16-14
Jan-Åke Lundberg – Roar Michelsen 10-14
19th September 2005