Croquet is a game in which players attempt to
hit their balls with long-handled mallets through all the
hoops on the court in the correct order and finally
hit the centre peg. International standard croquet has
been compared to both chess, because of the sometimes
complicated strategies and the necessity for
players to plan ahead to outwit the opponent,
and snooker because of the use of balls hitting each other at different
angles to manouvre them into useful positions for play.
A croquet court is about the size of two lawn
tennis courts, side by side, and is set out with six hoops
and a centre peg, like this:
No-one really knows where croquet began, but it
is a very old sport. It was introduced into England in the early 1860s
and soon became popular. One of the early croquet clubs was at Wimbledon,
where for many years, tennis played 'second fiddle' to the more popular
game - croquet.
Wimbledon,
1870
Today, the sport of croquet is played all over
the world by people of all ages from young children to octogenarians! There
are simple forms of the game as well as the extremely challenging International
Oxford
University site: probably the most comprehensive croquet site on the
web Croquet
World, gives you world-wide croquet news and information The World
of Croquet, Canadian croquet news and links to world croquet. Croquet
Web: Croquet resources on the Internet.
Wimbledon,
1870
George
plans ahead.
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