Croquet is a sport and also a recreational lawn game. It involves hitting plastic or wooden balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the US) embedded into the grass playing court.
The oldest document to bear the word "croquet" with a description of the modern game is the set of rules registered by Isaac Spratt in November 1856 with the Stationers' Company in London. This record is now in the English Public Records Office. In 1868 the first croquet all-comers' meeting was held at Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire and in the same year the All England Croquet Club was formed at Wimbledon, London.
In the book Queen of Games: The History of Croquet, Nicky Smith presents two theories of the origin of the modern game that took England by storm in the 1860s and then spread overseas.
The first explanation is that the ancestral game was introduced to Britain from France during the reign of Charles II of England, and was played under the name of paille-maille or pall mall, derived ultimately from Latin words for "ball and mallet". This was the explanation given in the ninth edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, dated 1877. In his 1810 book entitled The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, Joseph Strutt describes the way pall mall was played in England in the early 17th century: "Pale-maille is a game wherein a round box ball is struck with a mallet through a high arch of iron, which he that can do at the fewest blows, or at the number agreed upon, wins. It is to be observed, that there are two of these arches, that is one at either end of the alley. The game of mall was a fashionable amusement in the reign of Charles the Second, and the walk in Saint James's Park, now called the Mall, received its name from having been appropriated to the purpose of playing at mall, where Charles himself and his courtiers frequently exercised themselves in the practice of this pastime."
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet (2x)
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet
(croquet, croquet)
Yo, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and black
This game's gonna give me a heart attack
Ya got singles, doubles, and triple licks
Do what ever ya want, just pick your stick!
My name is Rick O'Shea
And I play blue
Back in the day, I say toodle-oo to you!
See, I am the rover, God gave me like 4 leaf clover
Hey wicket, Get your stick,
Gonna rob the courts, gonna rob the courts!
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet
(they played!)
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet
(oh, give it to me now!)
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet
(croquet, croquet)
I'm DJ Wickett and I rule the court
Lies for me, ya hear that sport
Put 'em through the holes, yeah I got my ho's
Watch up! This is a croquet hold-up!
My swing is sweeter than a fat jelly donut!
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet (2x)
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet
Excuse me -- I'm Roxie Roquet, I'm off cream
I inhereted my stroke from the queen
I've known lots of blokes off the green
So put your pounds & your bucks on me
I'm second only to capital B
1st come 1st serve the losers h'douerves
I'm gonna wipe this point thing clean
I'm talkin' bout YOU,
OSHAY
I'm talkin' bout YOU,
(no way!)
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet
(oh yeah)
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet
(is the mallet here?)
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
Back in the day people used to get dressed up
To play croquet
(croquet, croquet, croquet!)
One, two, three, four, five six seven eight nine
Do it in order, or lose your time,
Wicket sport is wicked rhyme
Hate to break it to you but this court is MINE.
(it's mine it's mine it's mine)
When you bend over, to take the pucks
All you fuckin' punks can kiss our butts! (2x)