Official Rules for Garden Croquet Published

[<<] [>>] by Brian Storey
23rd June 2007 (Other News)

The first official Garden Croquet Rules have been produced jointly by the World Croquet Federation and the Croquet Association.

The aims behind this initiative are to help promote a version of croquet that is similar to Association Croquet but is simple to learn and simple to play. The rules are designed to be played on lawns of variable quality and particular lawns where the grass is relatively long and the ground not necessarily flat. These are the first set of rules which provide a world wide standard version for garden or backyard croquet.

David Openshaw President of the WCF said, "I believe that these rules will help to promote Association Croquet. More players who play croquet in their gardens will enjoy the tactics of Association Croquet. This will in time lead to more garden croquet players making the leap to more serious croquet and join their local croquet club".

The basic rules are for a 14 point game played on a lawn of 17.5 metres by 14 metres. How to start the game is simplified. Compared with Association Croquet there are fewer faults and errors. For example it is not a fault to fail to move or shake the ball in the croquet stroke. The rules are also expressed in as simple a way as possible. The aim is to provide a fun game to play in the garden. As players become slightly more serious then there are official variations to the rules which allow garden croquet players to play a game very similar to Association Croquet.

David Openshaw added, "I hope that many of the worlds manufacturers of garden sets will adopt these rules as their standard version. It is also important that people searching the internet for croquet rules can more easily find these rules. They are already available on the WCF website and the CA website. We also intend to have these rules translated into many other languages".

See the Official WCF Garden Croquet Rules for more information.