Croquet, info, coaching, pics

CROQUET

What on earth is Croquet?

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

Rules.