A world champion and current No.1-ranked player walks among us, but his name may not be recognisable to most Sunshine Coast sport fans.
Current Caloundra Mallet Sports Club member Robert Fletcher won the 2013 Association Croquet (AC) world championship at the age of 20 as a Victorian player.
He followed that up with an even sweeter Australian team victory on the world croquet stage four years later.
In what Robert describes as “a dream come true”, he played alongside his younger brother Malcolm and older sibling Greg as teammates in the coveted 2017 MacRobertson International Croquet Shield.
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The Mac, as it is affectionately known, is the “Olympic Games of croquet”, held every four years, with a history dating to the first AC team contest between England and Australia in 1925.
Australia, England, New Zealand and the United States now vie for the premier six-player teams event in the world.
The 2017 event marked Greg’s debut, Robert’s third stint and Malcolm’s second selection in the national team.
And the brothers-in-arms battled with three other team members across a gruelling 15 days and 21 Test matches (12 singles and nine doubles) to secure the first Aussie triumph in the prestigious competition since 1935.
As an amateur sport, croquet has little tournament prizemoney across the globe, but world champion accolades still make it all worthwhile.
Now aged 29, Robert and 28-year-old Malcolm have become welcome newcomers to the Arthur Street croquet courts.
They moved to the Sunshine Coast about a year ago from their childhood home of Lismore in southwest Victoria sheep country to grow their construction and manufacturing businesses.
Robert aims to well and truly put Caloundra on the world croquet map as he prepares to take on all-comers in July in London for the 2023 AC World Championships, then the 2024 Golf Croquet (GC) World Championships in October in the United States.
To be a dual world titleholder would be a culmination of two decades of practice, strategy and tournament travel for the unassuming young man who first picked up a mallet at the age of 10.
“At the time, our parents were looking for a sport for us all to play together,” Robert said, as a club day gathered momentum around him.
“We tried a bunch of different sports – bowls, cricket, tennis.
“The greenkeeper of the croquet club and bowls club … was like: ‘I can teach you either of the games if you want to come down and have a try’.
“We came down and tried croquet first, because we had tried lawn bowls previously, and loved it.
“We were interested in games like chess and snooker and we found a few parallels in croquet. That really piqued our interest.”
Without even realising, the trio of brothers in their rural town of 500 people were smashing the stereotype of croquet players as much older, upper-class English gentlemen and women at their country retreats.
“Even in the town, there were a couple of young fringe players at the time,” Robert said.
“The Lismore club did become known for its young players. We fielded an entire pennant team out of under-21s. Probably the next youngest team was mid-40s.”
Asked why he stayed with croquet through his teens into adulthood, Robert turns a few thoughts over in his head before answering.
“The strategy, more than anything. GC has similar parallels to bowls. AC is less similar to bowls but more like golf and snooker and chess in terms of that turn-based thinking.”
Robert has managed to build on his breakthrough year of 2009 when, as a 15-year-old, he burst onto the world scene at the 12th World Croquet Federation (WCF) Association Croquet World Championship in Florida as the youngest semi-finalist ever.
Four years later, he was the youngest player to take the coveted title, and the only one to have won the event without dropping a game.
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And the significance of the world champion crown isn’t lost on him, either.
Robert is part of an exclusive club: only five players have accomplished the feat since rankings began about 1980.
The WCF’s official world championship competition started in 1989.
Up until then, the British Open champion was considered the best player in the world.
With many more under-35s taking up the sport, Robert believes this is a “good opportunity for the game to really spread its wings”.
Croquet is at a turning point.
The best ‘youngsters’ are elite athletes who bring a competitive hunger and professional training regime to the sport in an effort to be among the top echelon of players.
Robert, himself, practises every day and does weights training a few times a week.
“Croquet is like snooker was in the 1980s and to some degree today, the better players realise nutrition plays a part in it and physical training, not just skill training,” he said.
“With snooker back in the 1980s, players were even drinking (alcohol) while they were playing.
“At the moment, croquet needs to go through its enlightenment period but most of the best players are doing everything they possibly can. On top of their nutrition, they’re weights training outside skill training.
“Sport psychology is very important. From a pure psychology perspective, it’s very similar to golf.
“You’ll have your driving and your bunkers you have got to get through, and down the fairway, but the business end of it happens on the putting green.
“It’s very similar in croquet. You have a lot of shots that every player is going to get – there’s no issue there – and then it comes down to the very pointy end of the game and there’s shots players will expect to get but, all of a sudden, their mind starts to play tricks on them and you need to be prepared for that.
“It could be hoop shots, it could be medium-distance roquet (hitting another ball) and also strategy as well – being able to think clearly.
“There are 100s in the audience at a world championships. But it’s all live streamed nowadays. So, any mistake you make could be on there forever.”
This self-confessed “very aggressive player” has set himself apart from the pack by being very adaptable to local variations in the grass courts, as well as hoops – whether they be set in sand or clay.
Robert agrees that, theoretically, over the next 18 months, he has the best opportunity so far to reach his ultimate goal: to be ranked No.1 in the world in AC and GC croquet and world champion simultaneously in both codes.
But he admits: “I don’t look at it that way.”
“I just try my best,” he said matter-of-factly.
“The world championships is very hard to win. Even if you’re very good, there are lots of other very good individual players.
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“It could come down to home court advantage or very good form from a certain player.
“I’m not the overwhelming favourite.”
Robert is currently No.1 in AC and No.8 in GC in the world.
Brother Malcolm is also ranked in the top 10 in AC, while Greg, 31, and living in Germany, is still in the top 15, despite croquet being less popular in that country and setbacks in matchplay due to COVID in the past few years.
All three brothers will be competing in London in July – for the first time together in individual world championships since 2012.
Robert’s awards tally alone stands at: 1 individual AC world champion, 1 world team champion, 1 silver and 3 bronze individual medals, and somewhere between 26 and 30 Australian titles.
Still, he would be more than happy to add two more shiny world champion trophies to that collection this year and in 2024.
Hopefully, between the three of them, their mum will soon be able to add to the trophy cabinet in the family farmhouse.
