Don Mears

Don and Gene Mears at the Christmas Dinner in December 2023

We are sad to hear of the death of Don Mears.

Don was a long-serving member of the Club. He was a mainstay of the coaching team, both at the start of the  Academy and its predecessor, the Summer School.

In 2007 he received the Lifetime Coaching Award from the Croquet Association (now Croquet England), the very first recipient of that honour for long and meritorious service to coaching. He was originally trained and assessed as a Grade 1 coach in 1989 by Ron Welch and immediately joined our former Club Chairman Bryan Teague, coaching on his formal club courses. Don soon also qualified as a Grade 2 coach, giving his unstinted time and effort to his club's internal coaching program. He has been a leading member of the coaching team at the SECF Summer School through the reigns of David Collins and Daphne Gaitley. Along with other coaches at Southwick, he coached at local clubs including Ringmer, Rottingdean and Preston Park; literally hundreds of players were helped with patience and good humour and benefited from his detailed knowledge of stroke play and tactics.

Don had an impressive reputation both for the quantity and quality of his coaching, his dedication to the sport and the energy and time he has devoted to others. In all this he was ably supported by his wife Gene, also a good AC player.

Those of us who knew Don have fond memories of him and we send our deepest sympathies to Gene and their family.

The coaching team for the 2008 Academy courses (left to right: Michael Hague, Frances Low, John Low, Don Mears, (unknown), Bryan Teague, Paul Castell, Gene Mears, John Taylor, Cliff Jones, John Hobbs, Alan Cottle and Jack Davies. 

Don coaching for the Croquet Academy in 2008

A theory session in the Croquet Academy, 2013

Don's last appearance at the club in 2023