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It's all over red rover

Posted by Greg on July 19, 2011 at 07:28

Wwhat is the origin of "it's all over red rover"?
In the sport of Croquet the last hoop (of 12) is called rover hoop. Why?
When your opponent puts their second ball through rover hoop they have only to peg out and hence "it's all over red rover".
The current form of croquet developed in latter half of 1800s - so did the saying predate croquet?

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