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" How Many Pins Do You Try To
Knock Down In A Game Of Skittles " ?
Knock Down In A Game Of Skittles " ?
-
" Name A Term Used In Football " ?
But The Answer I Have Is - 9 " !
Can someone teach us about the game of skittles? Please
Skittles or Nine Pins has long been played in the Inns of England. In general, players take turns to throw wooden balls down a lane at the end of which are several wooden skittles in an attempt to knock them all over. There are a number of skittle games across England and there have been many more in the past. It could be that the game came from Germany as one of the earliest references is to from Germany, in the 3rd or 4th century monks played a game with a kegel which was a club carried for self defence. In the game, the kegel represented a sin or temptation and the monks would throw stones at it until they knocked it over. The modern German term for skittles is Kegelen.
Joseph Strutt tells us that this picture is from a 14th century "Book of Prayers".
There are two 14th century manuscripts which show a game called club Kayles (from the French "quilles" or skittles) and which depict a skittles game in which one skittle is bigger, differently shaped, and in most cases positioned so as to be the most difficult to knock over. The throwers, in the pictures, are about to launch a long club-like object at the skittles underarm. The large skittle is presumably a king pin as featured in some of the modern versions of skittles. The fact that the thrower is not using a ball is not at all unusual - the Skittles cousins, Aunt Sally, and various games played on a court in Northern Europe still uses a baton shaped stick to chuck at the doll and many modern skittles games throw a object called a "cheese" instead of a ball. A cheese is any "lump" which is used to throw at the skittles and shapes can vary from barrel shaped to, well, cheese shaped, really.
There is no doubt that Skittles has been one of the most popular sports in England since at least medieval times. Many old pictures and books mention it. A study of old pictures of the Thames Frost fairs shows that Nine Pins was consistently one of the entertainments. On the left is a small part of a painting of the 1694 frost fair. On the right is a snippet of a picture dated before 1666 showing the Thames frozen over. The line of people crossing the ice is shown at the top while a game of Nine Pins goes on nearby.
It seems that for many centuries right through to the present day, there have always been a bunch of different skittles games being played. Information is sketchy until the 1700s but the game of Closh or Cloish frequently appears and later on the game of Loggats turns up. Joseph Strutt tells us that the skittles were often made from bones and in a play from 1860, one of the characters has the immortal line "I'll cleave you from the skull to the twist and make nine skittles of thy bones".
One of the many variations of the game came from Holland and was known as Dutch Pins. You can see from the picture that the balls have holes and it is this game that is believed to have been taken to America where it eventually became the ubiquitous "Ten Pin Bowling". Note also the use of a Kingpin and the fact that the player is "tipping" - playing from point blank range...
Some pictures of the 18th and 19th centuries show a player throwing or rolling the ball or cheese while standing right next to the pin diamond. This is usually not a mistake or an illustrative convenience; in fact many games allowed the players to first aim from distance and then take their final throw at point blank range. This last technique is called "tipping" and this form of the game may still be seen today in France.
Come the early 1800s, Strutt lists the following five as the primary forms of the game:
•Skittles
•Nine Pins
•Dutch Pins
•Four Corners
•Rolly Polly
It is interesting that skittles and nine pins were definitely different games at this time (1800). Nine-pins was played at an agreed distance and was a test to see who could knock down all the pins in the least number of throws. Skittles, by contrast, involved both throwing at distance and "tipping" (see above) and was simply scored by counting the pins toppled, the winner being the first to reach a certain total.
This is a picture of Skittles from - J.Wheble Warwick Sq.dated 1801. Below is from Pyne dated 1802..
Dutch Pins also involved both rolling from distance as well as "tipping" but was distinguished by the use of finger holes in the balls, by the pins being taller and thinner and by the use of a kingpin - a single skittle that stood higher than the others and was usually required to be knocked over first.
The black and white photo from Holland to the right was kindly sent in by John Penny. Note the distinctive hole in the balls - this must have been (perhaps unsurprisingly) the game of Dutch Pins.
Virtually all forms of modern English Skittles (except one) feature projectiles being propelled from one end of an alley in an effort to knock down nine pins stood in a square at the other end. That is about all that many of the games do have in common, though, and over the years, Skittles developed regional variations in skittle size and shape, skittle alley length, use of a kingpin, size and shape of the balls/cheeses and the rules began to vary quite radically across England. One of the most marked divisions is in the method for actually throwing the balls or cheeses. In London, the heavy cheese is flung full toss directly at the skittles, over in the West country balls are rolled down the full length of the alley while in the midlands the Long Alley game usually requires the cheese or ball to bounce a single time before hitting the skittles.
West Country Skittles
Western Alley Skittles is the most popular and basic version of Alley Skittles wherein 9 skittles are arranged in a square at the end of an alley. The alley is around 24 feet long and each turn starts with all the skittles standing and consists of three throws down the alley. If all the pins are knocked down, then they are all reset. So the maximum score in one turn is 27.
The picture of Western Skittles to the left is published by kind permission of Eric Brain, Bath University.
There are variations from town to town and even pub to pub as to the further details. For instance in Dorset, back boards are installed at the end of each alley. This allows players to use the trusy "Dorset flop" technique wherein the back board is used to 'launch' a player from squatting position down the alley at which point both hands propel the ball towards the skittles! In the Bridport League, apparently only the middle pin is re-erected once all nine have been toppled giving a maxiumum score of 11. Balls can be made from a variety of hardwoods although Lignum Vitae is the traditional favourite. Many leagues these days insist upon heavy rubber balls. This author's research has discovered 4 main types of pin as follows:
Wales / Glamorgan - the smallest of the pins at 6 - 8 inches high, thin with a bobble on top. Gloucester - Barrel shaped pin about 10 inches high. Bristol - A bulge in the middle about the same height as the Gloucester variety. Sometimes with a kingpin. Devon - Very large pins with a bulge in the middle. 12 inches high with a kingpin that can be up to 15 inches high.
Most people have come across this game at some time or other and that's one of the most remarkable things about it. It is an enormously popular game, it's heartland spreading from Devonshire across the South of England to Wiltshire, Northwards through Gloucestershire and into some parts of Wales. Although London Darts is probably the most popular pub game in Britain, Darts is an organised televised sport with a single set of rules and much promotion. It is therefore remarkable that Western Skittles is probably the second most popular pub game in England given that there are so many disadvantages set against it:-
•it takes up a lot of valuable pub space;
•there are no generally accepted rules and in fact a myriad disparate variations exist,
•it has no overall organising body,
•and consequently no advertising and little media interest;
•furthermore the equipment is pretty expensive and has to be renewed on a regular basis (some skittles leagues need 2 sets of pins each season).
The only answer to this quandrary is obvious - the game is still played by large groups of enthusiastic followers because it has the key hallmarks of a successful game in spades - easy to learn, difficult to master and great fun for beginners and experts alike.