Student Championships

[<<] [>>] by Charlie Sharpe at Oxford University
30th July (AC - Championships)

On July 27-28, 2024, in usual fashion, the Oxford University Association Croquet Club (OUACC) hosted the annual Student Association Croquet Championships. This prestigious event, which has been held by the OUACC for many years, consists of both a doubles competition and a singles competition (with a plate round).

This year saw one of the largest turnouts in the tournament's history, with 14 players travelling from across the UK and Europe to participate. Students represented universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Manchester, BPP (Brierley Price Prior) University, and Bocconi University in Milan. Among the competitors were both the current (Charlie Sharpe) and former (Teddy W-Sitwell) OUACC Presidents, who faced each other in a gruelling singles final match, leaving everything on the field.

Each day saw spectacular weather, with the sun gracing the players and lawns under a cloudless sky for all 16 hours between sunrise and sunset. Unfortunately, the large number of entrants meant that the first games started at 8 am on both days, pushing students out of their comfort zones before play even started by being forced to get up before their usual 12 pm alarms went off. Additionally, play did not finish until 8pm, which was only made possible by the late summer sunset. Despite this, students were tremendously enthusiastic to get on the lawns and start playing, and this continued even as we surpassed the 12-hour mark on each day.

The doubles final went to time, with Jerome and Ben (J&B, Cambridge) putting in a fantastic shift and leading by 12 points when Charlie and Jasper (J&C, Oxford) had their final turn. However, J&C managed to claw their way back into the game by the skin of their teeth, finishing their turn with a one-hoop lead. J&B then had their final turn, needing to score one hoop to bring it to a golden point and two hoops to win. Unfortunately, they did not make their hoops, and the nail-biting game of croquet finished at 16-15 in favour of J&C.

The singles competition was equally entertaining. Teddy W-Sitwell managed a fantastic triple peel against an unsuspecting, and unfortunate, Jasper Singh in the quarter-finals. Teddy then went on to win both the semi-final and grand final matches convincingly, securing the singles championship.

We were fortunate to have the President of Croquet England, Patricia Duke-Cox, present the trophies to the singles and doubles winners. She gave an excellent speech about the history of the tournament and the significance of the trophies. All in all, the tournament was a great success, and it was wonderful to see so many young players travelling from around the world to play some Association Croquet.

Singles winner: Teddy Wilmot-Sitwell, BPP University

Doubles winners: Charlie Sharpe & Jasper Singh, Oxford University