Your local club probably offers coaching for beginners, and possibly beyond into intermediate play.

The CA runs a number of courses:

• Improver Course
• Bronze Course
• Silver Course
• Silver Gilt Course
• Gold Course

The Regional Bronze or Improvers Courses concentrate on setting up and maintaining breaks, and positive use of bisques. The National Silver Course and the Silver-Gilt (Introduction to Advanced Play) Course both concentrate on the kind of break management and tactics that naturally lead the player to win the Silver Badge. The National Gold Course is designed to prepare players to achieve the Triple Peel and therefore obtain the Gold Badge. It suggests tactics for the standard triple and the delayed triple, and covers the attacking leaves after the first ball has reached four-back, in order to make the lift shot as difficult as possible for the opponent. A workshop covering the Sextuple Peel was run in August 2004 - going into the mechanics of the usual break required, the leaves required to set up the situation, and the difficulties that may follow if things do not go exactly to plan. Several of the participants have since obtained their Platinum Badge. The workshop will be run again when there is sufficient demand.

Coaching Courses in the Fixtures Book

Date	Venue	Event	Type key	Comments	Details	Alloc.	Close	Draw
5-6 Apr	Newport	Referees Course (Association Croquet)	CRA		Details	Jan 1
12-13 Apr	Bristol	Elite Coaching Course	CA		Details	Jan 1	Mar 22
19-20 Apr	Sussex County	Improvers Coaching Course	CA	H18+	Details	Jan 1	Apr 1
19-20 Apr	Sussex County	Bronze Coaching Course	CA	H12-18	Details	Jan 1	Apr 1
19-20 Apr	Sussex County	Silver Gilt Coaching Course	CA	H3-6	Details	Jan 1	Apr 1
19-20 Apr	Nottingham	Referees Course (Association Croquet)	CRA		Details	Jan 1
26-27 Apr	Sussex County	Silver Coaching Course	CA	H6-11	Details	Jan 1	Apr 8
26-27 Apr	Sussex County	Gold Coaching Course	CA	H4-	Details	Jan 1	Apr 8
21-25 Jul	Sussex County	Summer School	CA	H16+ (5wd)	Details	Jan 1	Jul 4

Total working days: 5

Refer to the Fixtures Book (and its addendum) for full details.

For more information, contact the club, local federation or the CA Office.

Becoming a Coach

Club Coaches

The CA runs courses for those wishing to become club coaches.

Please refer to the fixtures book for more information

Grade I, II and III coaches

If you want to become a graded coach, please contact the chairman of the CA Coaching Committee for more details.

Awards

The CA provides a number of merit awards; these recognise the achievement of certain standards. To qualify for these awards the standard must be achieved in a CA tournament and the player must win the game concerned. The tournament manager will have an application form that you and your opponent must sign and he will countersign. The form is then sent to Bruce Rannie who administers the scheme and he will send a badge by return.

Further information about merit awards, is shown on a separate page.

Each year the CA recognises one coach who has, in the opinion of the coaching committee, provided outstanding service to croquet. This award is called 'Coach of the Year'. If you have any nominations please pass them to the chairman of the CA Coaching Committee.

Coaching Resources

• The CA shop supplies:
  • Books
  • Videos
• The coaching manual can be downloaded for free.
• Tactics: see Oxford Croquet and some tactical articles are also available on this site.