All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club are invited to become members. The patron of the club is Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and the President is The Duke of Kent. The Club was founded by six gentlemen at the offices of "The Field" on 23 July 1868 at the height of a croquet craze as the "All England Croquet Club," and held its first croquet competition in 1870. Its original ground was situated off Worple Road, Wimbledon. Croquet was very popular there until the then-infant sport of lawn tennis (a game introduced by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so prior, and originally called "Sphairistikè") was
Croquet the strict sequence of play, and complicated on the other hand by the continuation of deadness. A further difference is the more restrictive boundary-line rules of American croquet. In the American game, roqueting a ball out of bounds or running a hoop out of bounds causes the turn to end, and balls that go out of bounds are replaced only from the boundary rather than as in association croquet. "Attacking" balls on the boundary line to bring them into play is thus far more challenging. Nine-wicket croquet, sometimes called "backyard croquet", is played mainly in Canada and the United States,