Skittles is a very popular game especially in taverns here in the United Kingdom (or so I think, I’m not sure if it’s played only in England or also elsewhere).
Similar to bowling, players take turns throwing wooden balls that in this particular game are called “cheese” or “cheeses” (I heard both).
The difficulty of the game is that the cheese must be thrown on the pins without touching the ground.
I sometimes play it in a local pub which has it for its guests and after work I like to have a drink and enjoy a night of “beer and pins,” as I remembered it from reading “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” (also known as “The Pickwick Papers”), Charles Dickens's first novel.
The game of Skittles, or Nine Pins is basically the predecessor of the 10-pin traditional bowling game we have all over the world today and it has long been played in the inns of England.
Generally speaking, players take turns tossing wooden balls/cheese down a lane, at the end of which there are several wooden pins, in an attempt to knock them all down.
There are a number of versions of this game all over England though and there have been more in the past.
In fact over the years, this kind of bowling has developed regional variations that changed the pins shape and size, the length to the target, the use of a centre bowling pin, the size and shape of the balls (cheeses) and the rules are beginning to vary quite radically across England.
In London, heavy ‘cheeses’ are thrown directly into the bowls, the other way around, in the west of the country the balls are rolled the entire length of the corridor while in the central region the long corridor game often requires the cheese or ball to bounce just once before hitting the pins.
Parallel to these developments, the phenomenon of miniaturization also occurred, as it did for many other old English games.
Skittles pins
This would tend to happen so that pub owners could retain the pleasure of the game even if no larger space was needed by removing the bowling alley in order to play.
Some of these tabletop versions of bowling are still hugely popular, especially the version known as “Tabletop Skittles.”
In the traditional size game, the nine rounded pins are strictly made of wood and about 35cm high, while the shape to be thrown cannot weigh less than 4kg, a considerable weight if you think that it cannot touch the ground, but must arrive directly on the pins.
Great control and strength are needed to achieve the goal and you can only imagine the noise in the pub when the game is being played – although nobody cares when they have had a few beers and they are engaged in loud conversations themselves.
I have read that a similar game was also played in Germany centuries ago and I think that throwing something trying to hit a target is one of the most remote games existing and, if I recall correctly, also the Mayans played something similar.
Nevertheless, English people love Skittles and you can try it in the local pubs alongside darts, billiards and table tennis.
Overall I think that English people become very playful when they drink something so it’s a good idea to have such games in the pubs to facilitate people to socialize and spend time in a fun and cheerful way.
