Chris learnt how to play croquet whilst studying for a physics degree at Oxford University. In 1986, he became a founder member of the Dyffryn Croquet Club near Cardiff, Wales. As a player he has won the Welsh Championship on three occasions and the Spencer Ell Cup. He has been a regular in the Wales Home International team since 1992 and captained Wales to their WCF World 14pt Team Championship triumph in 2000.
However it is for his role as the WCF Association Croquet Ranking Officer that the sport owes him recognition. Since taking over the maintenance of the Association Croquet rankings from Stephen Mulliner in 1997, he has worked tirelessly to maintain and improve the service offered. In 2004, the service was updated to the interactive version that we know today but even since then Chris has continuously sought to improve the service offered by the site and the statistics that can be accessed.
Results of games are entered as soon as they are received meaning that the ranking list is always as up to date as possible. As well as the site being of general interest to players, it serves as an invaluable tool to managers looking to seed events and to selectors, not just from the point of view of the grading information supplied but also by making accessible the huge database of results on which the system relies.
Since 1997, Chris has entered the results of more than 180,000 games into the system, but, as if this were not enough, Chris is now going back through old records with the aim of creating ranking lists back to 1918. His role of CA Archivist helps to provide access to the historical information for this latest project. Through his tireless efforts and by constantly seeking to provide another angle for the user to view the information in the vast database, Chris has made the rankings so much more than a list of numbers. It is through his efforts alone that the resource of the interactive ranking database is available to us all, a resource without which the sport would be much the poorer.