By Mikayla van Loon
The Lilydale Croquet Club is busily preparing for its major milestone birthday in October as one of the oldest clubs in Victoria.
Reaching 130 years since its inception, the club’s members, past players and presidents, family, friends and members of various clubs from the region will be gathering on Saturday 19 October to celebrate.
Formed in 1894, the proposal was put forward by the lawn tennis club to establish a croquet club at the recreation reserve, now known as Melba Park.
On 28 April 1894, the tennis committee presented the idea to the council, which was accepted on the condition “the possession of the land be resumed by the council at any time, on notice in writing being given to the tennis committee”.
The Lilydale Express newspaper reported that the official opening was held on 10 October 1894.
It had always been thought, however, that the sport was being played much earlier than that using a gravel surface.
This was later confirmed when the club underwent a refurbishment of the green, discovering the gravel surface beneath and indicating that the croquet court had always been positioned where it is today.
Outgoing croquet club president John Thomson said at that time the tennis club was already established in the spot the croquet club now resides in, while the bowls club was positioned in the middle of Main Street.
“When the bowls club moved here, that’s also when the tennis club applied for the croquet, so they were all here at the same time,” he said.
“Our storage shed, that was in the Main Street and belonged to the bowling club. It was their pavilion and then that was moved down here. We’ve retained it and we use it as a storage shed now.
“There were supposed to be plans for another court early on as well, but that never eventuated.”
The now storage shed was built as the pavilion in 1925 before being relocated to Melba Park in 1927. It is a key historical feature of Lilydale and the croquet club.
In June of 1927, the combined Lilydale Bowling, Tennis and Croquet Clubs applied for a loan to build a new and improved pavilion to be called Melba Hall, after Dame Nellie Melba did the honours of opening the new building.
Unfortunately, a fire in 1990 destroyed the building and much of the documentation and photos relating to the history of the clubs.
While a clear history of croquet itself is not known, it is thought to have started in Ireland and introduced to England in the 1850s.
Shortly after, the game invention made its way over to Australia, with the first reference to a croquet club being in Kyneton in 1866.
Lilydale was the second club to form, followed by Ballarat City (1902), and Bendigo, Bright, Ballarat Western and Melbourne clubs in 1904.
According to Croquet England, the sport became rather popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, something that could be attested to the equal terms allowing both men and women, of all ages, to play.
Croquet traditionally became a woman’s sport, with the wives of businessmen finding it a game they could play.
“Peter Norman was president of the club at one stage and he did a lot for the club. He was the first male member of the club,” Mr Thomson said.
“Up until then, Lilydale Croquet Club was all ladies. He proceeded to get other husbands of wives to come along and join in as well.”
Mr Norman was integral to refurbishing the storage shed, lobbying the council for the works to be done in 1989.
Piecing together as much of the croquet club’s history prior to the fire as he could, Mr Norman used his connections with the Lilydale Historical Society to fill in gaps of the missing timeline.
Salvaged from the fire wreck however, was a photo of the Lilydale Croquet Club in 1899, which now hangs enlarged on the wall of the current club room in Melba Park.
Another item of major significance is the 1900 club competition prize mallet which was presented to Mrs Milne by Mrs Kay.
“We have our historical mallet and we use this mallet for when we have our opening days, for running the first hoop open. This is what we call ‘opening the season’,” Mr Thomson said.
This will open the day of celebrations for the 130th birthday.
Mr Thomson said when his wife joined the club nine years ago, she became the 16th member of the club.
“We’re now up to 36 members. We don’t go out and advertise as such. People just see us and ring and say, ‘can I come in?’.
“Our procedure for joining is we take them for two coaching sessions, and then they get three games for free to come and play with the members. Then if they want to continue, they then join but if they find it’s not for them, that’s fine.
“We’ve been quite fortunate that we’ve just steadily run. You always get a drop off with one or two members here and there. But even over covid, we didn’t lose any members. Everybody stayed on as members which was really good because a lot of clubs struggled to get their members back.”
As the only club for the Yarra Ranges shire, with the next closest being Ringwood, Mr Thomson said there is a rather large catchment of people and it sees members travel from the inner parts of the shire.
For those interested in giving croquet a go, the club will be hosting a come and try day as part of the 130th celebrations on Sunday 27 October between 10am and 2pm.
“So if somebody wants to come and try, they can, the coaches and members will be here to take them through the basics of croquet,” Mr Thomson said.
The official birthday celebration on Saturday 19 October will begin at 11.30am, with speeches and proceedings to be held at the club itself, before heading over to The Crown Hotel for lunch.
Lilydale Croquet Club is located on Market Street, near the entrance to Melba Park.
