Question: In what way is croquet different from other sports?
About the article "Croquet", section "Association".

Candidate passages:
  Croquet invented in Ireland.  
The Croquet Association, which was formed as the United All England Croquet Association in 1897, is the national governing body for the sport of croquet in England.
Until 1974 the association was responsible for croquet in the whole of the United Kingdom.
The Scottish Croquet Association, formed in 1974, now has responsibility for croquet in Scotland.
At the 2013 AGM the association formally relinquished control of the game in the other parts of the United Kingdom.
Presidents of the association have included Sir Compton Mackenzie, who was President from 1953 to 1966.
The association controls the rules of the game, in conjunction with the croquet associations of Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
It also controls the regulations of tournaments for its member clubs.
The Open Championship of croquet originally dates back to 1867, but after a hiatus during the years 1883-1896 was reintroduced by the Croquet Association. 
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 "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.
"Whilst the name pall mall and various games bearing this name may have been played elsewhere (France and Italy) the description above suggests that the croquet-like games were certainly popular in England as early as 1611.
Some early sources refer to pall mall being played over a large distance (as in golf), however an image in Strutt's 1801 book clearly shows a croquet-like ground billiards game (balls on ground, hoop, bats and peg) being played over a "short", garden-sized distance.
Interestingly, this image's caption describes the game as "a curious ancient pastime", confirming that croquet games were not new in early nineteenth century England.
In Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary, his definition of "pall mall" clearly describes a game with similarities to modern croquet: "A play in which the ball is struck with a mallet through an iron ring".
However, there is no evidence that pall mall involved the croquet stroke which is the distinguishing characteristic of the modern game.
The second theory is that the rules of the modern game of croquet arrived from Ireland during the 1850s, perhaps after being brought there from Brittany where a similar game was played on the beaches.
Records show the similar game of "crookey" being played at Castlebellingham in 1834, which was introduced to Galway in 1835 and played on the bishop's palace garden, and in the same year to the genteel Dublin suburb of Kingstown (today Dún Laoghaire) where it was first spelt as "croquet".
There is, however, no pre-1858 Irish document that describes the way game was played, in particular there is no reference to the distinctive croquet stroke.
The noted croquet historian Dr Prior, in his book of 1872, makes the categoric statement "One thing only is certain: it is from Ireland that croquet came to England and it was on the lawn of the late Lord Lonsdale that it was first played in this country."
This was about 1851.
John Jaques apparently claimed in a letter to Arthur Lillie in 1873 that he had himself seen the game played in Ireland and, "I made the implements and published directions (such as they were) before Mr Spratt above introduced the subject to me."
Whatever the truth of the matter, Jaques certainly played an important role in popularising the game, producing editions of the rules in 1857, 1860, and 1864.
Regardless when and by what route it reached England and the British colonies in its recognizable form, croquet is, like pall mall, trucco, jeu de mail and kolven, clearly a derivative of ground billiards, which was popular in Western Europe back to at least the 14th century, with roots in classical antiquity.
Croquet became highly popular as a social pastime in England during the 1860s; by 1867, Jaques had printed 65,000 copies of his "Laws and Regulations" of the game.
It quickly spread to other Anglophone countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.
No doubt one of the attractions was that the game could be played by both sexes; this also ensured a certain amount of adverse comment.
By the late 1870s, however, croquet had been eclipsed by another fashionable game, tennis, and many of the newly created croquet clubs, including the All England club at Wimbledon, converted some or all of their lawns into tennis courts.
There was a revival in the 1890s, but from then onwards, croquet was always a minority sport, with national individual participation amounting to a few thousand players.
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club still has a croquet lawn, but has not hosted any significant tournaments.
The English headquarters for the game is now in Cheltenham. 
Garden croquet is widely played in the UK.
The rules are easy to learn and the game can be played on lawns of almost any size but usually around by .
The rules are similar to those described above for Association Croquet with three major differences:  The starting point for all balls is a spot three feet in from the boundary directly in front of hoop1.
If a strikers ball goes off, there is no penalty, it comes back on three feet and the turn continues.
In a croquet stroke the croqueted ball does not have to move when the strikers ball is struck.
This version of the game is easy for beginners to learn.
The main Garden Croquet Club in the UK is the Bygrave Croquet Club which is a private club with five lawns.
Other clubs also use garden croquet as an introduction to the game, notably the Hampstead Heath Croquet Club and the Watford Croquet Club. 
Letchworth Croquet Club is based at Letchworth Sports and Tennis Club in Muddy Lane.
Letchworth Garden City Croquet Club was founded in 1987 by a small group of enthusiasts and with the help of the (then) corporation were provided with a venue for their activities on the site of the old Spirella tennis courts adjacent to Willian Way.
After much work on the playing surface, including using the ancient heavy roller left behind after the demise of the Spirella Sports Ground two nearly full-sized croquet lawns were created and the club members set about learning the finer points of the game with plenty of assistance from the East Anglian Croquet Association.
Very surprisingly, after only two years the club won the Longman Cup, the premier national handicap competition; something that the majority of croquet clubs never achieve!
The club moved to Muddy Lane to become part of Letchworth Sports and Tennis Club in Spring 2006.
A special event was held with lunch and AC and GC tournaments.
Dr Ian Vincent, Chairman of the Croquet Association, officially opened the lawns by running the first hoop.
Since moving the club's membership has risen to over 70 people with a wide age range.
The club is active in regional and national events and each year hosts the national final of the Croquets Association's Inter Club Golf Croquet Championship.
The croquet lawns at Letchworth were constructed with assistance from the Sports Turf Research Institute and were laser levelled and 76 tons of Leighton Buzzard washed sand ameliorated into the top surface.
In the ensuing years the club has conducted a rigorous lawn maintenance regime with the result that the two lawns are now amongst the finest in the UK.