Gladstone croquet meeting this Saturday 16 July, plus ten facts about croquet

Gladstone meeting this Saturday 16 July

Meeting this Saturday 16 July at 1.00pm.

Please come along to show your support.

Ten fascinating facts about croquet

10 fascinating facts about croquet

1. Croquet is believed to have its origins in 17th-century palle-maille, a game often played in London's Pall Mall. It has been said that only tobacco smoke spread faster through the British Empire.

2. The most common form of the game is Association Croquet, which is the international version of the sport and is played by the majority of tournament croquet players.

3. Rapper P Diddy held a croquet party in May to celebrate becoming the first rap performer to be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

4. Croquet was the first outdoor sport to embrace equality, allowing both sexes to play the game on an equal footing.

5. Croquet reached the South Pole in 2005 when American scientists became the first to play a game there, in the snow, outside the South Pole Observatory.

6. Croquet was a one-off Olympic sport in 1900, although it was so poorly organised that one competitor went to his death without ever having known he was an Olympian.

7. Pictures of then British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott playing at his official residence in 2006 while supposedly running the country prompted a 300 per cent surge in sales of croquet sets at Asda.

8. Croquet balls were originally made from wood, but they are now largely comprised of cork or nylon in very hard plastic.

9. Croquet has been reinvented in many forms: eXtreme eschews the garden setting for more robust terrain, featuring hills, sand, mud and water hazards. Bicycle croquet is another variation, in which players are allowed just 10 seconds to complete a shot. Meanwhile, two million people play Japanese 'gateball', a sort of five-a-side speed croquet.

10. Lewis Carroll featured a surreal version of the game in Alice in Wonderland. A hedgehog was used as the ball and a flamingo as the mallet, while soldiers doubled over to make the hoops.