THE scene at Watford Leisure Centre on Mondays is like one from Alice in Wonderland, writes Grele White.

For here, on a huge, soft, green carpet, complete with hoops, the game we all associate with fairy tale-like lazy summer Sundays on the lawn is in full progress, played by men dressed for the summer.

Croquet has moved indoors in Watford - but only as a temporary experiment.

The move, however, has proved unexpectedly popular as it turns out Watford is a perfect centre for an indoor court, with no less than 32 croquet clubs placed within one hour's journey of the leisure centre at Woodside.

David Drazin, captain of Watford (Cassiobury) Croquet Club, which has organised the move indoors, said: "Two weeks after we circulated the clubs about the facility for ten Mondays, all the slots were booked."

They come from Harrow, Letchworth, High Wycombe and St Albans, to mention a few clubs, and they play doubles in this serious version of the game to make the most of limited time and space.

Real croquet is a far cry from the game most people play with the set handed down through generations with local family rules.

"You do not hit the opponents' ball into the shrubbery - even if there was one," said Bill Gillott from Chorleywood, treasurer of the Watford club. which celebrated its 60th anniversary last year.

"It is like playing chess with balls," offered John Gibbons from Radlett, who only took up the game seriously when he joined Cassiobury in August.

After 20 years in the property business, he found himself able to take more time out for sport and was keen to keep learning and practising croquet after the end of the outdoor season, which runs from April to October.

Established members knew that The Croquet Association will lend clubs a "rug", worth £15,000, and Watford Leisure Centre found a slot for the club to hire and were keen to accommodate the new sport.

At £12 for a morning and £18 for an afternoon slot, the court is fully booked for the experiment, which comes to a close on March 9.

But judging by the success, both borrowed rug and croquet players will be heading for Watford again next season.

The idea of a permanent indoor croquet court in Watford was floated between gentle strokes of mallets sending balls through hoops with amazing accuracy.

The verdict on the court compared with the outdoor, carefully manicured lawns the players are used to was: "Very good and very, very fast."

Although serious croquet players hate the Alice image, they do admit that Woodside has become a bit of a wonderland on Mondays.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.