CROQUET NEWS: Summer Games CROQUET NEWS: Summer Games 
23 June 2007
story in Quite Interesting column of Telegraph, London, England, UK 
photo by John Robertson in Telegraph, London, England, UK
The first Olympics since the Ancient Greeks were held in the Cotswolds. Robert Dover, a lawyer and philanthropist, established his "Olimpick Games" on a hill above Chipping Camden in 1612. As well as the "manly pursuits" of wrestling, cudgel-play and spurning the barre (a kind of Cotswold caber-toss), there were contests in singing, pipe-playing and horseracing, as well as tents for chess.
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| Croquet probably originates from palle-maille, popular in 17th-century England. |
The games were banned under Cromwell, but were revived in the 18th century and continue to this day. The key sport remains shin-kicking, where men dressed in shepherd smocks attempt to kick the legs out from under one another. The umpire is called the "stickler" - the origin of the term for a pedant.
"Olimpick" contests could be violent. A sword fight between Sir German Poole and a Mr Hutchinson saw three of the latter's fingers removed before he'd even drawn his sword. He responded by slicing off Poole's nose and pocketing it so that it couldn't be reattached. Shin-kicking itself was banned in the 1850s. In those days, competitors wore steel-capped boots and toughened their shins by hitting them with hammers.
There is no record of Baron Coubertin, the founder of the International Olympic Committee, visiting Dover's Hill, but he did visit Much Wenlock, where Dr John Brookes established his own "Olympian" Games in 1850. The baron returned to Paris determined to revive an international Olympics in the same spirit. Sadly, pig racing and the old womens' sprint haven't survived as Olympic sports.
Only one Olympic cricket match has ever been played, at the 2nd Olympiad in Paris in 1900, when a group of English club cricketers beat a French team made up largely of English expats.
Cricket has had its own share of rural rough-housing. A 1776 match between Kent and Essex at Tilbury Fort ended in bloodshed: a Kent player shot and killed an opponent, an invalid spectator was bayoneted and a soldier was shot dead.
Well into the 19th century, the wicket at Lords was still prepared by grazing sheep.
Americans often disparage cricket as dull in comparison to baseball (also a British invention). In fact, it was popular in the early days of the USA; a number of founding fathers were keen players. In the 1780s, John Adams told Congress that if leaders of cricket clubs could be called presidents, the leader of the USA should also be able to have the same title.
The modern world's first international sporting fixture was a cricket match between Canada and the USA in 1844. The first international cricket tour should have been played between France and the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1789, but was postponed because of the French Revolution. The game was replayed in 1989: the French won by seven wickets.
Croquet was another one-off Olympic sport, in 1900, and the first to involve women. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, responsible for Wimbledon, was originally simply The All England Croquet Club. Until this organisation took up the mantle, the rules of tennis were administered by the MCC.
Pictures of John Prescott playing croquet last year led to a 300 per cent increase in sales of croquet sets at Asda, but he isn't the first politician hit by a croquet-related scandal. US President Rutherford B Hayes caused a furore in the late 19th century when he appropriated $6 of government funds for the purchase of croquet balls.
Croquet probably originates from the game palle-maille, which was popular in 17th-century England. Players shot a ball through a suspended hoop using a mallet. It was played in London's Pall Mall, which is how the street was named.