European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 27, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Pagas Sis us theuil Gui so Huerby the croquet a association s Secretary describes croquet to ult eras Between snooker and Bess but Plaj fed on Gnu. The lineup inc shot and it port gum handshake Are an part of it. Company hoping to croquet will be a Good match by Marcus Eliason London a pick. Pock. Puck. Those sounds if All goes As planned will soon be emanating from millions of to sets As croquet the sport once associated with Alice in wonderland and posh country gardens makes its great leap Forward to the video age. Croquet lovers sense big things ahead. They can imag Ine the bucolic sound of Mallei against Ball becoming As familiar to the nation As the Click of the snooker Cue and the thwack of the Dart Bath Staples of television already. Now a to company inspired by the Success other obscure sports Nave enjoyed through to is experimenting with live croquet coverage. Whether White Flann eled individuals putting com pressed Cork bulls through wire hoops can drag the Public Sway from dramatic to series such Aspa Las remains to be seen. In any ease the croquet association is gearing up for the big Lime. It has devised ii special fast game for Urban Back Yards employs its own promotion Man. Called a National development officer and is planning a world conference or Cro Quet playing a i ions this year. Televised snooker darts indoor bowl and sheepdog contests each have several million armchair fanatics big Money sponsors and heroes. These Range from Dapper snooker champions in Bow tics and waistcoats to Dartboard wizards who tend to Pau chinos on screen Beer swigging and a phlegmatic aloofness from the cheering fans. An outsider flipping to channels and stumbling on say a real Cliffhanger of a sheepdog tournament might think it was All a bit Ofa joke. But in fad these sports esoteric though they May seem arc taken very very seriously. So perhaps croquet a descent into the mass Market is inevitable. The croquet Pioneer b Manchester based. Granada television which has Laid out its own croquet Lawn and recently ran a four country tournament Over three Days Complete with commercial sponsorship and three spells of live coverage a Day plus nightly edited highlights. Granada spokesman Graham King says no audience figures Are available yet from the Northwest where the tournament was broadcast but believes it could go the Way of indoor bowls which had s million viewers a Day when it went National three years ago. He bristles slightly at the suggestion croquet is an obscure sport saying it is wrongly associated with vicar age parties on summer afternoons very much a stereotype of English society. It s a minority sport but certainly not an obscure one. Ifs an English  croquet s aficionados Are eager to spread the word. With television in mind they have developed a special streamlined version of the game called Short croquet which is played on a smaller Lawn and can be finished in an hour rather than last an endless summer afternoon. As the game Sheds its exclusivity players no longer need be invited to join a club. Croquet s Mecca the hurl Ingham club in South London has opened a Public court for All Comers. The number of players is believed to be growing by 30 percent a year and about 90 major tournaments a year arc held in Britain. Croquet has lost its image of being played Only by Gentry who can afford the Upkeep of Large country mansions says the National development officer Chris Hudson. One problem is that croquet la the uninitiated is Down right baffling. Us Complex rules require Devi ausness and thinking Many moves ahead through bisque and half Bis ques pivots and pilots Cross wiring and peeled baits. A to viewer who gels himself a Beer May return to the screen to discover he has completely lost truck of the play. Croquet association Secretary Brian Macmillan Calls it a Cross Between snooker and chess but played on  Alice while in wonderland watched the Queen of hearts and her minions play croquet and soon came to the conclusion that ii was a very difficult game indeed in which the players All played at once without wailing for turns quarrelling All the  croquet lovers such As Macmillan say they will never forgive Lewis Carroll for encumbering croquet with a comic image. The game probably originated in Northern France and became popular in England in the mid-l9lh Century. Us rules were codified by Waller Jones Whimore an eccentric entrepreneur whose inventions included a Boot lace Winder a shoehorn for galoshes and a Gunpowder operated railway Carriage alarm for the Protection of unaccompanied lady travellers. True croquet today is played competitively Only in eng land and some of its former colonies including the United Sta Tes where it has experienced a recent Boom. In the first Ever British american International played last year the British Side romped Home 13-1. Macmillan says this May be because britons take the game More seriously. For one thing they pronounce it Crow key giving it a business like touch compared with the american Crook a  but otherwise croquet being such a Complex game Macmillan has difficulty defining where the British and american versions differ. After some thought he says i Don t think american croquet is As intelligent As  Macmillan says nobody except one or two of the very elderly traditionalists is against popularizing croquet. We want to get it across that croquet can be played by anyone mule or female old or Young. It s not an upper class sport. Two of the new clubs that registered with us recently arc in working class districts of  clip Law Ai. I m a i a. In  r Iii j grif Itaf  t la of taking the time to line up shots As these iwo women Are doing s part of the strategy practice by Good croquet players. Sis to photo by Cut Scull or