Apr 18, 2019
Image: A close shot - clipartpanda.com
Tomorrow, at The Greyhound, Tinsley Green, England, begins a momentous event, the World Marbles Championships according to wikipedia.com.
You probably played marbles as a kid but did your parents ever tell you that if you knuckled down and worked on your tolleys you could be a world champion? The championships are held each year in the car park of this West Sussex pub – the Wembley of marbles – when around 140 competitors vie for championship honors inside a 6 foot concrete circle.
It might sound like a lark but it’s no gimmick; the championships have been held since 1932. Competition marbles sees 49 of the glass balls placed in the ring and the first person or team to knock 25 out of the ring with their tolley (shooting marble) goes through to the next round. The event has attracted players from Continental Europe and the USA, with German teams winning a couple of world titles, something the Britons ruefully blame on their own excessive alcohol intake.
Teams consist of six players, so you might need to rustle up five marble mates to partake. The marbles season around Sussex begins on Ash Wednesday if you’re looking to get match hardened. Tinsley Green is right beside Gatwick Airport if you’re planning a grand international entrance.
This ancient event takes place annually on Good Friday, and has been played in its current format since 1932 at the Greyhound public house in Tinsley Green, West Sussex. It is an event where teams of six players participate in a marbles knock-out tournament to win the title and a silver trophy. The event is open to anyone of any age or nationality. Over the years, players from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Wales and the United States have participated alongside the English teams
The tournament dates back to 1588 during the reign of Elizabeth I, when marbles was chosen as the deciding game of a legendary sporting encounter between two young suitors, Giles and Hodge, over the hand of a Tinsley Green milk maiden named Joan. Every popular sport of the day was played in an Olympic style contest lasting one week. Hodge had been victorious at singlestick, backsword, quarter staff, cudgel play, wrestling and cock throwing, while Giles was successful in winning the archery, cricket-a-wicket, tilting at quintain (jousting targets), Turk’s head, stoolball and tipcat. With the score level at 6 - 6, Good Friday was the date chosen for the final event. Marbles was chosen by the girl to be the deciding game, and Giles defeated Hodge.
The championships are organized by the British Marbles Board of Control (BMBC) and the version of marbles played is "Ring Taw", known in the USA as "Ringer" and in Germany as "Englisches Ringspiel". Forty-nine target marbles are grouped closely together in 6 foot diameter (1.8 metre) raised concrete ring covered with sand, each of the target marbles being a coloured glass or ceramic sphere having a diameter of approximately 12mm (half an inch).
Two teams of six players of any age, gender or skill level, take turns using the tip of the finger to aim and project the "tolley", a larger marble (commonly referred to as the "shooter" or "taw"), which is a glass or ceramic sphere of 18mm diameter (three-quarters of an inch), deploying top spin, back spin and side spin, to drive other marbles out of the ring.
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A player's knuckle must be touching the ground when shooting, known as "knuckling down". Moving the tolley closer to the target marbles, known as "cabbaging", is forbidden - as is any other advantageous movement of a players shooting hand during shooting.These would constitute a foul known as "fudging". Any intentional or persistent contact between a player's clothing and a marble or tolley while it is motion would be a foul called "blocking". No score results from a foul shot. A foul shot ends the turn of the offending player, though the score achieved in that turn stands. Any player who makes three foul shots during a game is eliminated from that game. The first team to knock out 25 marbles from the ring is the winner.
A Brief Historical Time-Line
- 1588 - Giles defeated Hodge at marbles to claim his prize of the hand of a local young maiden of Tinsley Green.
- 1888 - Sam Spooner wins the title on the 300th year of the event (according to British Pathé video 1938)[
- 1932 – The Black Horse from Hookwood, were the first winners of the modern event.
- 1935 – 6 foot concrete ring used for the first time
- 1942 to 1945 – No tournaments took place due to the war.
- March 1951 – The coldest recorded conditions for tournament when the Tinsley Green Tigers beat the Arundel Mullets in the final.
- April 1962 - Glass marbles were used for the first time in place of older clay marbles.
- March 1970 – Controversially the BMBC banned women from the main tournament because of the wearing of mini-skirts.
- April 1973 - Len Smith of the Toucon Terribles wins a record (and still unbeaten) 12th individual title
- March 1975 - Snow had to swept from the ring in temperatures of -2deg C. The "Terribles" win a record 19th title.
- April 1977 - The tournament was moved to the Crawley Leisure Centre for one single time.
- April 1987 – A Trophy was introduced for "the women's best individual player" and won by Jackie Hodge.
- 1989 and 1991 – Highest number of teams ever entered, 28 teams of six totalling 168 players competing.
- March 1992 – The TennKy Sharpshooters from Tennessee and Kentucky, USA are the first overseas team to win the trophy.
- April 2000 – Team USA won the international Fen Cup with a team made up almost entirely of shooters under the age of 18.
- April 2002 – Saxonia Globe Snippers become the first German team to win the tournament.
- September 2008 the Greyhound Pub, in Tinsley Green closed, only re-opening shortly before the next tournament.
- April 2010 – Jen McGowan (formerly Jen LeBon) sets the standard for the ladies with a twelfth individual title.
- March 2013 – Crawley-based Black Dog Boozers win the tournament for a 13th time, just 6 off the record of 19 set in 1975.
- March 2018 – The Johnson Jets set the record for being runners up 11 times, having won the tournament just twice .
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