Game with rules which vary from league to league
SKITTLES has for centuries been a popular game in England, with a particularly strong following in the West Country.
Players will tell you that in this area there are four distinctly different types of wooden pins that are placed in a nine square shape at the end of the alley to be knocked over by the bowler.
The Gloucester pin is about ten inches high and shaped like a slim barrel.
The Bristol pin is the same height, but with a much more pronounced bulge about its middle.
Pins found in Devon are larger, between 12 and 15 inches tall with a bulging girth, while the Welsh pin (which is used in some Forest of Dean pubs) is much smaller, between six and eight inches tall, with a straight shank and bobble at the top, rather like a pepper mill.
After darts, skittles is probably the most widely played pub game, yet it has no national body or organisation, attracts no TV coverage or sponsorship and doesn’t have a written set of rules and regulations that applies in all parts of the country.
Quite the opposite in fact, the rules vary from Gloucester to Cheltenham to Stroud and even from one pub to the next.
There are generally two white lines painted on the alley a few feet apart at the bowler’s end.
But in some places you must drop the ball between them, while in others you must toss the ball to land beyond the farthest line.
The pins are made of wood wherever you go, but in some places wooden balls are used and in others the balls are made of rubber.
Alleys vary considerably in length too, anything from 30 to 55 feet in length.
In Gloucestershire the maximum score that can be made in a turn of three balls is 27, unless the player has a spare (we’ll come back to spares), but in Dorset it’s 11.
Although a sport in which individuals can excel or flop, skittles, like cricket, is a team game.
“So how many players are there in a team?” you may be asking.
Well, like everything else to do with skittles, that depends.
In the Tewkesbury and District Skittles League, teams consist of 10 players playing nine hands each. A hand, by the way, is when a player has his or her go and bowls three balls. All clear so far? Good.
In the Stroud and District Skittle League, men’s teams are made up of 10 players each having eight hands of three balls, while ladies’ teams have eight players each having 10 hands of three balls. Games are played in two equal halves, but I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.
In the Cheltenham Skittles League, teams comprise a dozen players in the winter and half a dozen in the summer.
Players have six hands of three balls whatever the season.
However, in Gloucester, players play 10 hands of three balls and a team is made up of 10 players.
In the Berkeley and District Skittles League teams are made up of eight players and each player bowls eight hands of three balls.
And finally, in the Cirencester and District Skittles League, there are nine players in a team each having six hands of three balls.
Every game has its own vocabulary and skittles is no exception.
We mentioned spares earlier – a spare is when a player knocks down all nine pins with two balls, allowing a third throw with the pins re-set.
In Gloucestershire if you bowl a ball that knocks down just the back pin it’s called a back stabber in some places and a Taylor in others.
Should you have the misfortune to complete a hand of three balls and not dislodge any of the pins you’ve embarrassed yourself with a beaver, also called a bolter in some Forest of Dean pubs.
An any old how ball is one that missed the player’s intended target but knocks over a few pins anyway, while a player who takes their turn and misses all the skittles earns a duck, sometimes known as a Jon, or a senior hill. And we should not forget that essential of the game, the sticker. That’s the person who stands the pins back up when they’ve been knocked over.
Humour, of course, plays its part. Bowl a ball that bounces along the alley and the opposing team will sing the Dam Buster’s March.
And at any time, any player can shout “skittlers’ night” and everyone in the alley will rock helplessly with laughter, a tradition for which there appears to be no explanation.
All of these eccentricities add to the pleasure of skittles, which like all the best games, is simple to understand and fiendishly difficult to master.
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