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European Golf Croquet Championships
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Players Profiles
belgium
Pierre BeaudryAwaiting info
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england
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Euan BurridgeEuan took up the game at the age of 7 under his Dad’s wing at Nottingham Croquet club and has since gone on to play various tournaments both nationally and internationally. His notable performances have been a Semi-Final at the U21 Golf Croquet World Championships in 2019 and winning the plate and the main event that year. He has also won the GC Welsh Championship, AC National Junior Championship, GC Under 25s Open Championship and also reached the final of the 2021 Ricki Savage Memorial. Away from croquet Euan currently studies International Business Management and Professional Golf.
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Rachel GeeRachel started playing competitive croquet when she was 15 and lives and works in Nottingham. She has represented England in the Openshaw Shield (2016), won the English National Singles Championship twice (2019, 2020), the European Championships twice (2014, 2018) and the Women's World Championship (2011).
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Stephen MullinerStephen Mulliner, 68, discovered competitive croquet as a Cambridge undergraduate in 1975 and began playing in tournaments in 1976. In Association Croquet, he has won the British Open Championship three times, the World Championship in 2016 and has represented Great Britain or England in the MacRobertson Shield on eight occasions since 1982.
Stephen took up Golf Croquet seriously in 2000 and has won the British Open Championship eight times and reached the World Championship semi-finals three times. He has represented England in the Openshaw Shield three times and is the current English National Singles Champion. |
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Stuart M SmithStuart started playing croquet in 2016 and won the Spiers trophy for the Most Improved Player in 2018.
He has subsequently won the A Level Series twice, 2019 & 2020 and also the Selectors second 8s, in 2019. In 2021 Stuart was Captain of the successful England team winning the GC Home Internationals. Stuart moved to Devon in 2019 with his family and is now Captain of the newly formed Devon County GC team. He is a member of Budleigh Croquet Club and has close ties with Sidmouth Croquet Club. |
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Aston WadeAston learned to play Golf Croquet in the summer of 2020 at Hamptworth Croquet Club. The following year, he won the 2021 British Open on his debut at the event and at the age of 18. In 2021 Aston was awarded the Spiers Trophy for the most improved male GC player of the year. Aston will be representing England at the World Championships later this year. He has also been selected for the England vs Spain Test Match as well as the England teams for both the GC and AC Home Internationals.
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finland
Lars BomanAwaiting info
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Helena JanssonAwaiting info
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german
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Ulf SaewertBorn in Berlin, Ulf has been playing croquet since 2015. This is Ulf’s first visit to the UK having won the German GC Nationals in 2019. Since 2020 he has been encouraging more people to take up the sport of croquet at his club in Germany.
He is looking forward to meeting the best European players during the European Championships at Budleigh Salterton. |
Wolfgang UsbeckAwaiting info
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ireland
Robert O'DonoghueAwaiting info
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Karl MurphyAwaiting info
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Mark StephensAwaiting info
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latvia
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Rolands DundersRolands currently 46 yeas old, has been playing golf croquet since 2016, and improving his playing level slowly but steadily. After winning several national B level tournaments this is his first international event.
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Tomass Freimanis Tomass, 38, started to play croquet in year 2014. Soon after this game turned into his passion. Tomass has participated in the GC European Championships in 2016, and GC WTC 2021. He practices more then the average players in Latvia and hopefully one day the results will come. Currently he is ranked number 5 in national GC rankings. His aim is to compete with the top 10 players of the world.
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Roberts Stafeckis Roberts, 58, had been playing croquet with friends for some years on his backyard lawn, before, back in 2009, he came up with the idea to start develop croquet as a competitive sport in Latvia. He has been the founder and President of Latvia Croquet Federation since its establishment 13 years ago, has been a captain of Team Latvia at the GC WTC 2012 and 2021, played in GC WC 2019, and GC European Championships in 2014 and 2017. Roberts is currently number 2 in national GC rankings, and serves on the Management Committee of the World Croquet Federation.
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norway
Glenn FauskeAwaiting info
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Trond JansenAwaiting info
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scotland
Lorna DewarAwaiting info
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spain
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Andrés Álvarez-SalaHe was born in Madrid in 1986 and has been working as a corporate lawyer for the last eleven years in an international law firm. He has played croquet since he was a child and has been ranked within the Spanish top players ever since he started, driven by several early victories in his croquet career. He has been Spanish Single GC Champion twice (2012 and 2019), Spanish Doubles GC Champion five times (2013, 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2021) and Spanish Champion with his club four times (2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022). Internationally, in 2017 and 2018 he won the GC German Open and Tier 2 GC World Team Champion with Spain in 2021. For the last six years he has been a member of the Spanish National Croquet Team and has represented Spain in international croquet events on 172 occasions since 2003.
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Manuel Álvarez-SalaBorn in Madrid in 1990, he is a lawyer by profession. He started playing croquet at a very early age in Gijón (Asturias) where he played throughout his childhood with all his brothers and cousins in the family's summer house. Passionate about this sport and the values it transmits, he is a cold and calculating croquet player. Selected for two consecutive years as the Spanish player with the highest annual progression (2018 and 2019), he has been Spanish Single Champion (2021), Spanish Doubles Champion on three occasions (2015, 2020 and 2021) and Spanish Champion with his club on four occasions (2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022). He has represented his country in international events more than 150 times and was part of the Spanish Team that moved up to Tier 1 in October 2021. He is currently ranked No. 3 among Spanish players and on the top 80 croquet players in the world.
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Nicholas DenizotAwaiting info
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Basilio IglesiasAwaiting info
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Jose RivaAwaiting info
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sweden
Joi EleboAwaiting info
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Anton KamneAnton has played garden croquet his entire life but started with elite croquet only in 2020. He has no major titles and is a Member of Poseidon Croquet Club, Gothenburg Sweden.
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Daniel LarssonAwaiting info
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swiTzerland
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Kevin CollinsIt is fifteen years now since Kevin and his family arrived in Zürich from California. Albeit the token American on the team, he often boasts of his diverse European family history from Ireland, England, Belgium, France and the Italian part of Switzerland. After his long career in the Silicon Valley, he spent his first years in Switzerland managing engineering projects at ETH Zürich. Kevin was formally introduced to croquet roughly ten years ago while the club was still playing backyard (or 9-wicket) croquet in a local park. Shortly after the Zürich group found themselves competing in tournaments in CERN, and traveling to several neighbouring countries for various GC competitions. Perhaps an echo of Kevin’s preference for a pint of Guinness, he can often be heard to say as the game commences: “It’s a lovely day for croquet.”
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Ian SextonIan Sexton has worked at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) Geneva Switzerland, since 1984. Married with 4 children, he started playing croquet in 1990 at the CERN croquet club. Since then he has represented Switzerland in several International matches, and has played in the World and European Championships (AC & GC). Ranked number 1 in Switzerland, currently the Swiss AC & GC Champion. Other interests, skiing, golf, travel and food.
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Daniel StuderusAwaiting info
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wales
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Ian BurridgeIan began playing as a 17 year old at school in Colchester. He rapidly progressed becoming an AC International for Wales and Great Britain. More recently Ian has focussed on GC winning the English National Singles in 2016 and the First Eight in 2017. He remains a regular representative of Wales in international events and is President of the World Croquet Federation and Treasurer of the Croquet Association. Ian lives near Grantham and plays at the Nottingham croquet club with his son Euan.
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Chris RobertsAwaiting info
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