Some Novelties in the Laws of Croquet.
The Committee of the Croquet Association metaphorically, at any rate, do
not let the grass grow under their feet, and the new edition of the
“Laws of Croquet,” recently issued by the governing body of the game,
will be studied with interest by the ever-increasing army of croquet
players.
It was certainly a good move on the part of the members of the Croquet
Association in January, 1905, when the Associates vested the authority
to alter and add to the laws of the game in the hands of the Committee
of the Association, instead of leaving reform, as before, to the hurry
and disorder of a general meeting of the Association.
On January 26th and February 8th last, the Committee for the first time
exercised their legislative authority, and in accordance with Rule xxi.
several alterations in and additions to the laws of croquet were passed
by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting, the necessary
quorum of sixteen being present.
Perhaps one of the most important matters is the alteration to Law 8,
which now reads: “In commencing, each ball shall in turn be placed on
the central line of the ground within three feet of the spot marked A in
the diagram of the setting.”
The central line of the ground is, of course, an imaginary straight line
passing through both pegs and extending to the boundary, and the spot
marked A is on the boundary immediately behind the winning peg.
Now this appears to be a great improvement, for the old method of
starting the game with the balls a foot in front of the first hoop was
not satisfactory. It required a great effort of clumsiness for a player
not to run his first hoop to start with, although many a good player has
been “had” once at least over the tricky opening credited to the fertile
mind of Mr. Eveleigh, which consisted in playing one’s ball back into
the first hoop, so that the following player was compelled to take
croquet before running the hoop.
A great merit of the new starting point is that it will do away with the
wear and tear of the ground in front of the first hoop, and the holes
and “rabbit-scrapes” which have disfigured the ground in front of the
first hoop should be things of the past. Moreover, the hoop itself used
to suffer damage from the attacks made upon it at the point-blank range
of a foot (and frequently less) not only by the ball, but too often by
the mallet of an impetuous player.
It will be very interesting to see what openings will be adopted by the
experts under the altered conditions, and at all events the start of the
game is likely to be more interesting than before, and for the makers of
breaks there is the likelihood of occasionally including another point.
But obviously in the case of very moderate players, the game might be
considerably prolonged by this method of beginning the game.
According to the laws for 1906, however, there is no need for moderate
players to play the full and most arduous setting, for Law 6 authorises
two shorter settings, which may be used at discretion; and these should
be most welcome to mediocre players, and in fact to all who would like
to shorten the game. With the standard setting, the game of course
consists of fourteen points for each ball.
[Illustration:
DIAGRAM No. 3.
]
[Illustration:
DIAGRAM No. 4.
(From the “Laws of Croquet.”)
]
A modification which has now been made optional is to play with this
same setting, but after the fourth hoop has been made, instead of going
down “the ladies’ mile,” through the two hoops in the middle, the new
plan is to take the turning peg next, and then take the penultimate and
rover hoops up to the winning peg as usual. Now here is a pretty little
game of just eight points per ball, every hoop once and each peg once.
The rough diagram, No. 3, will explain itself.
But the most interesting short setting is, to our mind, the one with no
turning peg, and the winning peg in the middle of the ground.
As will be seen from diagram No. 4, on the opposite page, this setting
entails the shifting of the penultimate and rover hoops farther apart
from one another, each of them being about three and a half yards
distant from the spots which under the standard setting would be
occupied by the two pegs. The game here is as usual until after the
fourth hoop has been run, and then the player has to come up through the
penultimate and rover hoops, and afterwards back to the winning peg in
the middle of the ground. Here there are only seven points to be made by
each ball, and the presence of the winning peg in the middle of the
ground seems to us an excellent idea, because not only will it require
some skill on the part of the players to avoid embarrassment from this
in the course of a break, since the peg will be exactly where the middle
ball should be found in the academic four-ball break, but also the
finish of the game has to take place in the middle of the ground. Now
this is likely to make a great difference to the game.
To the ordinary player the end of the game is about the most difficult
part of it. Obviously no one has had so much practice in finishing a
game of croquet as he has in beginning it, for although two people begin
a game, only one finishes it, and it is by no means easy to win the game
even when you have got both balls at the rover stage or hoop, with the
winning peg at the end of the ground. With the winning peg in the middle
of the ground, it will be more important than ever that a player should
win the game as soon as ever he can, without any delay in the centre of
the ground in the middle of his adversary’s game.
_The Croquet Association Gazette_ draws attention to three great
advantages offered by these short settings:—
(1) They will enable managers of tournaments to arrange for the “best of
three” games to be played in cases where, with a longer setting, there
would be time for single games only. The final could be either the best
of five (short setting) or best of three (long setting.)
(2) The monotony of long breaks will be abolished.
(3) The shorter the game the larger the proportion of start to
finish—the two most interesting periods of the game.
One of the worst features of the game of croquet as practised at
tournaments of late years has been the practice of close wiring, by
leaving the next player stuck in the middle of a hoop or up against the
wire. A usual finish up to a break was to leave the next player tight in
the blue hoop after the player had himself run it, and many a first-rate
player has been beaten by 26 points without ever getting an open shot
throughout the game. Last season some of the leading players, notably
Mr. Arthur Gilbey, at Swakeleys, adopted a system which should defeat
the methods of the close wirer, and this system has now been
incorporated in the laws of the game. The new law reads as follows:—
“If at the commencement of a turn the striker’s ball is “wired” from
all the other balls, either through the interposition or
interference of any hoop or peg, such ball being distant less than
one yard from that hoop or peg and having been placed there by the
stroke of an adversary, the striker may at his option lift his ball
and play it from any spot within a yard of where it lies. A ball is
“wired” when (1) any part of it cannot be driven in a straight line
towards every part of the ball aimed at; or (2) a wire or peg so
interferes with the backward swing of the mallet that the striker
cannot freely aim at every part of the ball.”
_The Croquet Association Gazette_ points out four drawbacks to this law,
viz., two measurements, lifting the ball, and the problem of deciding
whether a ball be wired or not.
Also the definition of wiring demands careful attention. The whole
target presented by the ball must be open; if the left-hand edge of the
striker’s ball cannot be driven in a straight line so as to hit the
right-hand edge of the object ball then the balls are wired. So this law
gives the open shot to everyone who is not wired by his own mallet or
that of his partner, should his ball be placed within three feet of a
hoop or peg by an adversary. There still remains the chance of safely
“masking” the balls from the shot of an opponent who is left in the
open, and the leading players were quite equal to doing this last
season. But “masking” the balls requires considerable ability, whilst
any fool could jam an adversary’s ball in a hoop.
The law with regard to “taking off” without moving both balls has now
been remodelled, and now that part of Law 17 reads: “In so doing
(_i.e._, taking off) he must move or shake each ball perceptibly, should
he fail to do so the balls are to remain where they lie or be replaced
at the option of the striker, and the turn ceases. The striker, if
challenged, must be prepared to assert definitely that he saw both balls
move or shake, and in default of such assertion the balls shall not be
considered to have been perceptibly moved or shaken. If the two balls do
not touch before and in the act of taking croquet the adversary may
require the stroke to be played again. In taking croquet the striker’s
ball shall not be in contact with more than one ball.”
The result of this law is that this offence is no longer regarded as a
foul stroke, but is treated much the same as the offence of driving one
of the balls over the boundary in a croquet stroke; except that in the
case of not moving the balls the offender can elect whether he will
replace the balls as they were before the stroke was made, or whether he
will leave them where they are at the end of the stroke.
It is quite right to make the penalty for non-moving or shaking less
severe than formerly, for since it must generally be a matter of rather
close observation to determine whether a ball has moved or no, and since
the striker is obviously in the best position to observe this, it was
difficult enough for some strikers to confess that they had not moved
the ball, and it is to be hoped that the lightening of the punishment
may lead to more pleas of guilty.
Of a verity there seems to be no end to the laws of croquet, and it
requires quite a gifted head to carry them all, with their various
alterations and additions; and the edition of the “Laws of Croquet” for
1906 is likely to revive the industry of the painstaking man who learns
up the laws by heart as well as he can, and always carries a copy of the
book in his pocket with a view to winning an occasional bet over some
well-engineered discussion about the laws of croquet.
An interesting feature of the plans of the Croquet Association for next
season is that the Committee have decided to use composition balls in
all Association tournaments instead of wood, which up to this year has
been the standard ball for tournaments.
Certainly the composition balls are in every way more satisfactory than
wood: they are absolutely accurate as to shape, weight and size, the
colour does not come off, and they are impervious to wet, whilst they
are more durable and cleaner in all weathers than the wooden balls.
Composition balls are, moreover, easier for running hoops than are those
made of wood, they have greater resiliency and more drive about them; on
the other hand, their resiliency is so great that it is very difficult
to “roll up” two balls together across the ground. But since this
rolling-up is nine times out of ten a foul stroke, to the extent that
the mallet has more than one contact with the ball during the stroke,
the more the roll-up is discouraged the better for the game. It is a
counsel of perfection, but we know some players who go so far as to say
that under favourable conditions the composition balls make the game of
croquet too easy.