Croquet
The modern sport of croquet—highly competitive but family oriented—originated in France during the early nineteenth century and was played with a unique mallet. This mallet, in its French peasant form, had a broomstick as a handle.The word croquet is derived from the French word croc, meaning “something shaped like a hook or a crook.” Modern croquet probably evolved from an earlier game called palle mall in which players hit a ball (palla) with a mallet (maglio) through a series of iron rings. An account of a variation on that game appeared in a diary entry by the English essayist Samuel Pepys in 1663.
Origins
Croquet was transplanted from France to Ireland, where, records show, people played it regularly after 1852. After the game was introduced to England it flourished as Walter James Whitmore, the game’s star player and tactician, promoted croquet and became the unofficial world champion in 1867 with his victory in the Moreton-on-Marsh, England, Croquet Open Championship. A year later he published a pioneering book entitled Croquet Tactics. The All England Croquet Club also was formed in 1868. Tennis historian E. Digby Baltzell, describing this period of the 1860s, was trying to be humorous but may have hit on the truth when he observed:
There were more than half a million more women than men in England, most of them, with the help of their mothers . . . basically engaged in hunting husbands. On the smooth croquet lawns, as well as in the surrounding shrubbery looking for lost balls, proper, crinoline-clad Victorian ladies, more or less cunning, sought to capture the hearts of clean-cut English gentlemen (1995).
Croquet might have grown in popularity to rival cricket as a major outdoor English sport if not for the arrival of another new sport that quickly became a public passion.Tennis was so popular that players took up all available grass space. Not surprisingly, by 1875 the All England Croquet Club had to add the words “and Lawn Tennis Club” to its name. Five years later the decline of croquet was spelled out when the club, based in Wimbledon, changed its name to the “All England Lawn Tennis Club.” Croquet suffered from having neither the popular appeal of cricket nor the physical dash and style of tennis. One sports historian commented that “even the ladies grew bored and impatient with croquet’s leisurely lack of vigor.” By the turn of the century croquet was no longer played at Wimbledon, and croquet’s international headquarters was moved to Roehampton and then to Hurlingham, both in England.
The American National Croquet League, founded in 1880, and the first Australian croquet club, founded in 1866, led croquet’s international expansion. The Australian Croquet Council was founded in 1950. (Australia leads the world with more than six thousand registered players.) In 1896 the Croquet Association, an international body, was founded.The game’s major impetus at the turn of the century was neither organizational nor regulatory: The emergence of star players from Ireland transformed the game into a sport.
During the nineteenth century croquet became an important vehicle by which women could move beyond the traditional boundaries of home, church, and school and attain a quasi-athletic pursuit.Writer Janet Woolum says that a milestone in women’s sports was the 13 June 1877 founding of the Ladies Club for Outdoor Sports at New Brighton in Staten Island, New York. Club members took part in archery, lawn tennis, and croquet. Sport sociologist Jennifer Hargreaves, however, says that although croquet was “a highly sociable and fashionable pastime,” as women entered athletics they were stereotyped as the weaker sex capable of playing only gentle and respectable games.That is,women could acceptably perform only “the smallest and meanest of movements.” Even with croquet, many people felt that women might more appropriately play croquet’s indoor variations— parlor croquet, table croquet, and carpet croquet— instead of the outdoor version.
Hooping It Up
During the 1860s a croquet craze swept the United States as town clubs held competitions, and some scholars say that croquet was important in advancing women’s rights. Nevertheless, during the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s conservative groups in the United States and England feared the downfall of women who let themselves be swept away by the excesses of such sports as bicycling and croquet. Despite such dire predictions, croquet flourished as a women’s sport. In the United States, long before women took part in competitive tennis or basketball their first venture into competition sport was with croquet during the 1860s.
The croquet court consisted of nine hoops and two pegs at the first championship in England in 1867.The court’s dimensions were 20 meters by 15 meters. The balls measured 9 centimeters in diameter, and the hoops had a maximum width of 20 centimeters.Three years later the court size was increased to 46 meters by 32 meters, and the hoops’ width was reduced to 10 centimeters.The number of hoops was reduced to six in 1871. This configuration, called the “Hale setting,” lasted from 1871 to 1922.
Straight and Narrow
Originally players struck the balls in a particular sequence (blue, red, black, and yellow), as in snooker. In 1914 this style of play was changed by the introduction of the either-ball game in which “the opponent could now play either of his balls. [This] meant that no easy break could be left for the next turn, for the opponent would remove the most useful ball to a safe position” (Arlott 1975). At the same time a 9.4-centimeter hoop was introduced.With a ball of 9.2 centimeters in diameter, the margin of error became minute, thus magnifying the importance of accurate ball striking. Perhaps only golf’s putting carries the same premium on precision striking and ball placement.
Croquet is not a team sport. Almost without exception in croquet one player challenges another. Many descriptions of croquet make it seem as complex and cerebral as chess. However, the essence of the sport is its simplicity.The object is to score points by striking the ball through each hoop in the proper order and hitting the stake. Each player, in turn, tries to make a point or to roquet—to hit an opponent’s ball with one’s own. If an opponent scores a point he or she is entitled to another stroke. If not, the next player takes a turn.
Croquet continues to be an elitist sport. During its early days having croquet hoops on a lawn showed the house owner to be on the cutting edge of fashion.Today croquet club memberships still tend to be expensive and exclusive. Not surprisingly, the world’s oldest “name” universities—Oxford and Cambridge—encourage the sport. In the United States croquet clubs exist in resort areas with an exclusive appeal, such as Greenbrier in West Virginia. The oldest U.S. university teams are at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Virginia. Only a few clubs exist in the Midwest, twenty-two in California, and more than that in the coastal resort townships of Florida.The largest concentration of croquet clubs is in the wealthy suburbs of larger northeastern cities such as Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. If croquet is to flourish, it must become more attractive to younger players.
Just as tennis has its Davis Cup, yachting its America’s Cup, and golf its Ryder Cup, croquet has its Mac- Robertson International Shield. The Croquet Association, with headquarters at the Hurlingham Club in England, organizes all of the major championship events. In England these events consist of the open championship (singles and doubles), the men’s, women’s, and mixed-doubles championships, and four invitation events.The President’s Cup is the most highly regarded of these latter events. Interclub croquet competition does not exist in the United Kingdom. In the United States croquet has been organized since 1976 by the United States Croquet Association.
A major, indeed, critical aspect of modern croquet is that it is a leader in terms of gender equality. Kay Flatten (2001, 281) notes: “Modern world rankings are combined for men and women, and the United States Croquet Association does not hold separate men’s and women’s championships.”
Scott A. G. M. Crawford