Croquet tournament named after loved Maleny community advocate
THE Range Croquet Club has created a competitive tournament to honour the life of Maleny community stalwart and avid croquet player, Gail Denver. Gail moved from England to Australia as a young girl, and lived in Maleny most of her life before she lost her battle to cancer just over 12 months ago.
Range Croquet Club president, Sarah Widin, said Gail was a beautiful person, and felt there was a need to remember her in the croquet community.
“I just thought it would be really nice to name a tournament after her just to remember her and her love for life and her love for croquet,” she said. “We started learning and playing croquet together in 2009 at Maleny, and she was a really close friend to me that I knew for 30 years.
“It was just over a year ago, her death was a huge loss to the community, she was everything to everyone really, Gail just did so much.”
The tournament will run from November 7 -10, with a division playing each day for the top and runners up prize pool cash prize. To kick the tournament off , the best of the best will play in the Division 1 Open games on Thursday. Division 2 players will then play on Friday, Division 3 will play on Saturday and Division 4, the lowest division, will play on Sunday.
Croquet players must be a part of a club to register for the Gail Denver tournament, and costs $25 to enter.
Sarah said there are people from across SouthEast Queensland signing up. “There’s a number of Sunshine Coast clubs getting involved stretching from Caloundra to Noosa, and a few from Brisbane clubs too,” she said.
Spectators can come along to the playing days for free, with the tournament coinciding with the Maleny Music Festival.
Sarah said she was grateful the event was still going ahead despite the clash.