Q&A

MARK McINERNEY Ireland's golf-croquet world champion – don't pretend you're not impressed,- talks to EOIN BUTLER

Congratulations on becoming Golf-Croquet World Champion? That must give you bragging rights over, what, four or five people?No, golf-croquet is a really big sport. It's very competitive. There were over 20 countries represented at the World Championships. I was up against 64 of the very best players in the world, including 15 Egyptians, who have dominated the sport until now. In fact, all previous golf-croquet world champions have been Egyptian.

Just to clarify, golf-croquet isn't a hybrid sport like football-tennis. It's a variant on croquet, like one-day cricket or match-play golf, correct?The best comparison, I think, would be to snooker and billiards. Croquet is similar to snooker, insofar as you can construct a break and keep your opponent out of the game for half an hour. Golf-croquet, on the other hand, is an alternate stroke game. You play a shot, your opponent plays a shot, and so on. It is the fastest growing version of croquet in the world.

People think of croquet as an upper-class English game. But it was invented in Ireland.Yes, despite the fact that it has a French name, and is associated with the British aristocracy, croquet was originally an Irish sport. The earliest evidence we have is that it was invented, I think, in Co Meath. But don't quote me on that. [Sorry! – EB]

The other misconception about the sport is that it's very genteel and played exclusively by elderly people. But you really thump that ball around. Well, the Egyptians certainly do hit the ball with ferocious power and accuracy. But this year I developed a completely different set of tactics to beat those guys. A lot of it has to do with the surface you're playing on. The Hurlingham Club in London has very fast lawns, so it required a more delicate touch than had been the case in previous years.

The more refined the sport, often, the more debauched the celebration. So did you celebrate becoming world croquet champion with a wild, hedonistic spree?No. I came home to Dublin airport after winning the title and there was no open-top bus for me. I was just another dude coming through arrivals.

But to be the best, to beat the best in the world – I think that’s an exceptional achievement in any discipline. I’ve finally put Irish croquet on the map. And this is important because Irish croquet badly needs sponsorship.

Do you need a new mallet or something? No, there are only a handful of players who play both association croquet and golf croquet – they're two completely different sets of skills – and I'm one of them. So my sights are set on the World Association Croquet Championships in Adelaide next year. No one has ever won the double. Only one person has ever even tried. I have an excellent chance of doing it, but I need sponsorship to get there.

What kind of reaction do you get when you tell people you play croquet? A lot of the ones you've mentioned. They think its a genteel sport, they'll mention Alice in Wonderland. They're often surprised too, because I'm six foot two inches, I weigh 15 stone: I look like I belong on a rugby pitch. But there are lots of sports to choose from.

One of the interesting things about croquet is that men have no competitive advantage over women. Absolutely, it's one of very few sports where men and women compete on a completely level playing field. It's not about physicality. It's about touch, it's about accuracy and, above all, it's about mental strength. They have recently created a separate Women's World Golf Croquet Championships, but I wasn't in favour of that.

When men and women did compete, which sex tended to come out on top? Men generally did.

So on that basis, would it be fair to surmise that men are just better than women?No, men tended to do better. But that was only because the overwhelming majority of competitors were male. There are lots of really superb female players who compete in mixed competition. There's a lady from the UK who was one of the top 10 players for years, which is pretty impressive when you consider probably 98 per cent of the players were men.

Neither is age any barrier. I got my first senior cap for Ireland at the age of 12 and I was competing against people in their 50s and 60s. So croquet really is a sport anyone can play.