BS: Pub Games

Subject: BS: Pub Games
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 05:25 AM

I thought we were having a Quiz at the Pub tonight, but it's not until Thursday. It got me thinking about Pub Games of the past. Most NZ pubs have had a pool table since the 1970s, our one gets a lot of use. Before that Table Football
was quite popular. Our local's Darts and Card Clubs are both defunct at the moment. There's an outdoor chessboard in front of the Pub, but it only seems to be used by visitors. Even the one and only 'Pokie' gets very little use from the regulars.

While browsing some of the Pubs which UKatters frequent, I see a few still have Tradional Pub Games. I remember playing Shove Ha'Penny in a country pub some 40 years back. Paul Metsers, a folksinging mate in Wellington, NZ, in the 60s, is now making Bagatelle, and other games, in Kendal, Cumbria, UK. His product looks identical to the one my grandmother had when I was a kid half a century back.

Anyway, UKatters, just how popular are the old pub games in the UK nowadays? Which ones are still played?

Cheers - Sam - in New Zealand

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: GUEST,Boab D
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 05:39 AM

In the pubs I feequent it is very rare to find people playing games other than pool and darts. However my father and I still go down the pub with a chess set and have a few games and a pint. You still see but very rarely dominoes. In the place we used to live there were alwaypool darts dominoes and cards on the go but that was about 12 years ago. Don't know as I havent been back in about the same amount of time.
Dylan

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 06:07 AM

I don't go anywhere that I see games other than pool and darts played on a regular basis. I have seen the occasional game of cribbage and dominoes being played and once in a while in one pub, some kids trying to get the ring on the bull's horn.

For my part, I attempt to play pool at least 4 nights a week - I'm no good but I love the game. I also could probably be persuaded to join in a number of card games including cribbage.

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: billy bob
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 07:05 AM

i used to drink in a pub in crickhowl, mid wales, called The Britania
this was famous localy for thier collection of pub games
incuding
Bar coits,
Ring the bull, in which a ring like the one that is put through a bulls nose is hung from the ceiling by a length of string about 5' long which is swung to land on a hook on th wall
plus pool and barts, etc

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 11:58 PM

Nowadays, still dominoes, cribbage and the like; obviously, darts, snooker, pool and (perhaps; I rather lose track of the difference) billiards. Bagatelle and Bar Billiards I haven't seen for a long time, or table football. I don't know that I'd count pinball or anything heavy on technology. There were still just a few skittle alleys when I was small, but I doubt that many survive now.

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 12:14 AM

Here only pool and a 'swing the rope and hook the ring' thing. Nothing else. Usually only pool. Snooker very very occasionally. Snooker tables are a rare beast in WY.

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: Amergin
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 12:32 AM

cribbage, pool, darts, cards....i think dominoes as well...

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: gnomad
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 04:14 AM

Would Quoits count?   

I mean the game pitching things like 1ft steel washers at a peg embedded in a bed of soft clay. There is a league for that in the north-east of Yorkshire which is regularly reported in the local press. Most of the games are between pubs, though they obviously don't take place inside.

I suspect a common ancestry with the horse-shoe pitching which I understand is a US pastime.

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 06:04 AM

I know quite a few pubs with a Shove Ha'penny board. "The Vigo" near Meopham, Kent, still has a "Dadlums" tabletop skittle alley and during the summer many Kentish pubs are involved in "Bat and Trap" leagues.

Many of the pubs around the Chislehurst area near me, are in a boules league - although I don't know if we should approve of such french imports.

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: sian, west wales
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 06:32 AM

There are a few pubs in the more rural areas here that still have Tippit matches - teams of two or three, two teams facing each other, all hands (in fists) on the table with a button hid in one fist of one team. Then there's a whole raft of commands to eliminate fists until the 'guessing' team has it narrowed down and they command "tip it". Simple, but very competitive. Don't talk to me about 'poker faces' - hardened Tippit players never crack ...

I also gave my local landlord a crokinole board (Canadian game) some years ago and it became really popular - to the point that we held the First European Crokinole Championship one year. Got on telly and everything!

sian

Subject: RE: BS: Pub Games
From: Cluin
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 01:03 PM

"Duck the Drunken Dancer" is always a good one... usually played most skillfully by barmaids, on account o' their experience.

And one continually played by the band: "Fending Off of the Request for Sweet Home Alabama" (played by scoring more points the longer you can go without saying "Fuck off and go sit down! We ain't doin' it, okay?")