Q 01/05

The club that hosts which famous tennis tournament was founded in 1868 purely for croquet?

A) The US Open

B) The Madrid Open

C) Wimbledon

D) The Italian Open

Answer · why

C) Wimbledon

Wimbledon began life as the All England Croquet Club. Its first tennis championship, in 1877, was staged to pay for repairs to the pony roller needed ...

Q 02/05

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which live birds do the players swing as croquet mallets?

A) Flamingos

B) Cormorants

C) Peacocks

D) Storks

Answer · why

A) Flamingos

Flamingos serve as the mallets while living playing-card soldiers bend over to form the hoops. Lewis Carroll published the scene in 1865, just as the ...

Q 03/05

Which country supplied every one of the ten players at the only Olympic croquet tournament, in 1900?

A) Britain

B) Belgium

C) Germany

D) France

Answer · why

D) France

France won every medal because nobody else entered. Only one paying spectator is recorded as turning up to watch.

Q 04/05

Croquet at the 1900 Games was one of the first Olympic sports to include which group of competitors?

A) Children

B) Women

C) Royalty

D) Soldiers

Answer · why

B) Women

Women first competed at the Olympics in 1900, and three of them played croquet alongside seven men. In every version of croquet, both sexes compete on...

Q 05/05

Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining replaced the novel's croquet-style mallet with which weapon for Jack Torrance?

A) A shotgun

B) A kitchen knife

C) A fire axe

D) A baseball bat

Answer · why

C) A fire axe

A fire axe became the film's signature prop. In Stephen King's book Jack stalks the Overlook Hotel with a mallet taken from the hotel's own playing co...