🇬🇧Many thanks to all the lovely people who spoke to me on camera on Good Friday 2022 at the marbles competition in Tinsley Green. Apologies to those that didn't make the final video. I had so many wonderful conversations, but just could not add you all, otherwise, the video would be almost an hour long.
The 'ring' is a raised concrete circle, six feet in diameter and covered lightly in sand. 49 marbles are compressed into a circular "pack" at the middle of the ring.
A “nose drop" decides who goes first. A marble is held on the tip of their nose and dropped onto the playing surface, the marble closest to a line decides who plays first.
Players are each armed with a tolley marble - this is their playing shooter marble and is slightly bigger than the 49 other marbles in the game. A point is scored for each marble their “shooter” knocks out of the ring. A player's knuckle must be touching the ground when shooting, this is known as "knuckling down" in marble jargon.
The first team to reach 25 points wins.
The final results of the day were:
Winners - The Yorkshire Meds
Runners up - The Black Dog
Individual winner - Colin Gardner
Sam McCarthy-Fox Break of the day winner - Halim Tata
Gardner's Golden Oldie winner - Halim Tata
Nina Coen Best Lady Player winner - Leila Kara
In tribute to Sam McCarthy-Fox, organiser of the competition for many decades, who sadly passed away in 2021, former marbles world champion Darren Ray has written a poem.
Somewhere on the Sussex border,
Things were getting out of order,
A chap called Sam, with a hairy chin
Was busy practising his spin;
Would this be the year he'd win
At the marbles championships,
Where varied people bend their hips,
And flick their tolleys all day long,
To drunken cheer and raucous song,
Outside a pub in Tinsley Green,
The Mecca of the marbles scene?
But when he read the invitation,
Sam was racked with consternation:
This year his team would have to enter,
Down at Crawley Leisure Centre!
He cried, "Oh no, this cannot be,
"The Greyhound is the place for me;
"I'll organise it on my own."
So hurried to his telephone,
And ringing round was pleased to find
Some other players of like mind.
There isn't much more tale to tell,
His tournament went rather well,
And now when we stand with our feet on the sand,
And the players are all lost thoughts,
A cheer should be cheered to the man with the beard-
Long live this most rustic of sports!