Pub sports have changed – try these modern games at the boozer instead
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There is plenty about modern life to cause celebration and aggravation in equal measure...but it is never safe to make an assumption about how the different generations feel about anything, from vegans to scented candles.
This week, Christopher Howse and Guy Kelly have insider knowledge on the evolution of pub sports...
Of all pub sports – shove ha’penny, cribbage, dominoes, darts, chess – the one that required the most skill was the one that was illegal.
The law, as pub-goers quoted it, permitted games of pure skill played for moderate stakes. At the table near the lavatories at the Coach and Horses in Soho, Norman Balon, the landlord, used to play a strange Italian card game called briscola, which used those continental cards with swords and cups and things.
The opinion of some of the regulars was that it was devilishly difficult. Others said it was like snap. I never understood the rules.
Behind Norman’s back, customers played spoof. This is a simple-looking game in which two players simultaneously reveal how many coins are in their hand after declaring the total number while their fists are still clenched. It sounds like a game of chance, and was certainly illegal, but in his day journalist Jeffrey Bernard could pay for his dinner with a game.
One day in the 1980s, he was playing a game of spoof in the Coach with Michael Heath, that brilliant observational cartoonist. Conan Nicholas, a wry old man who had invented cat-racing for purposes of betting during the periods when racecourses were frozen out of use, was there too and said: ‘I had a game of spoof with Frank Norman once.’
Frank Norman was the author of the musical Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be. He had a great scar running down his face that made him look more frightening than he usually was.
‘I won £1,000 off him,’ Conan continued. ‘I said: “Forget it, you can buy me lunch.”’ Jeffrey leant over and said: ‘The true story is that Frank won the £1,000 and then dismissed you with contempt. He said: “F—k off. Forget it.”’
‘Honestly, Jeff,’ said Conan, ‘I can’t remember which way round it was.’ ‘I should drop that word “honestly”,’ said Jeffrey. This exchange signalled the end of a friendship that had endured for decades.
There were no darts at the Coach and Horses. They’d have been too dangerous.
It’s all too rare to find a pub with a dartboard or snooker table in it these days. Fortunately, though, plenty of modern pub sports do still exist. You know them, even if you don’t know them.
Loiter vs linger
A packed pub. Two groups of friends, strangers, hover at either end of the bar. Both of you have decided to wait until a table is free. Making faux conversation among yourselves, you all become as vigilant as meerkats seconded to Special Branch before using a variety of tactics – sending advance parties to creep around the room asking to ‘perch on the end for a minute’; assigning one person to gaze psychotically at any table whose patrons have near-empty glasses; pretending to be a quizmaster requiring a desk – to become the first group to sit. Especially tense if a third group enters.
Good boy, tell no one
Known in the West Country as ‘Quaver waiver’. Basically, the object is to feed the excellent dog over there a sneaky crisp without its nutritionally officious owner noticing. It’s all in the eye contact. One crisp, one point. Then you whisper, ‘Good boy, tell no one,’ otherwise it doesn’t count. Can the two of you manage a whole packet?
How much?!
You put on a heart-rate monitor. Then you order one single pint of craft pale ale in a London pub of your choice and look at the figure appearing on the card machine. If your heart rate stays outside the red zone, you’ve passed. But you’ve also lived in London for too long.
Wee, wee, monsieur (or madam)
AKA ‘synchro urino’. On the first trip to the loo of the evening, you assess your potential partners. By the second you’ll know if anybody’s playing along. Can you and your new teammate synchronise your bladders until last orders, without acknowledging one another? Only on the final wee of the night is a simple smile and nod in the bathroom mirror permitted. The most rounds completed wins. The prize is achieving a kind of intimacy few ever reach.
But that’s where Gerald sits
Sit on the stool Gerald usually sits on. Wait for Gerald to arrive. See how long you can remain there.
