The Shove Ha'penny Control Association

Not much is known about the grandly titled Shove Ha'penny Control Association, which is perhaps surprising given how widespread the game was in pubs and clubs until relatively recent times. As yet, no-one has managed to unearth an archive of minutes and transactions for this auspicious control body, neither have any trophies, awards, or league tables come to light bearing their name. So it's a bit of a mystery just who or what the Association believed they were actually controlling!

In reality, there probably never was a Shove Ha'penny Control Association. More likely it was an opportunistic invention of one or more manufacturers, a clever marketing ruse designed to boost sales of their own 'official' boards as opposed to 'inferior' homemade and locally crafted ones, or indeed those sold by their many competitors.

In the post-war years when the game was at its most popular, there were one or two short-lived attempts to develop the game through national competition. The News of the World organised competitions for a number of popular pub games, most notably Darts but also Shove Ha'penny. Some regional and world competitions still occur to this day, and several regional champions of the game can be seen shoving for a big money prize on Yorkshire Televisions fabulously un-PC Indoor League series in the 70's. But other than these rare moments in the spotlight and a handful of local leagues which still exist, the game remains resolutely one for casual play at the pub, without the need for 'control' by an association of any kind.

This very heavy slate bears the Shove Ha'penny Control Association moniker in cast aluminium, and was the very first board I acquired. It's still a particular favourite of mine even though it doesn't get a great deal of use these days, being far too heavy to carry to the pub. The slate itself is very smooth and in remarkably good condition for its age. The Patent number for this and the token shown below dates the design to around 1929, a time when the game would have been very popular in pubs and clubs.

There's plenty of additional design on this board to warrant the patent, including rubber 'cushions', a handy depression to hold your chalk (right) and numbered beds, presumably for a scoring game. This appears to have been the Rolls Royce of manufactured Shove Ha'penny slates. There was also a cheaper 'Challenger' model without the numbering, and the design was either adapted or copied for later slates with plastic surrounds replacing the expensive aluminium of the originals, and sometimes branded for tobacco products (below). Many of these slates were supplied drilled ready for screwing to a table top, not strictly necessary given the enormous weight so possibly more of a guard against theft.

Serious league play, of the kind the Shove Ha'penny Control Association were presumably aiming to foster, requires a stringent set of rules leaving no room for ambiguity or dispute. Before play began, the 'Number of Beds' required for a win would have to be chalked into this circle, a verbal agreement simply wouldn't do. Needless to say, these boards are the only ones I've seen with this unnecessary design quirk.

The manufacturers of these boards were not ones to miss a trick, making special Shove Ha'penny Tokens for use in place of the age-old solution of a plain old ha'penny. These bespoke tokens are made from a thin disc of Brass with milled edges, the top side nickel silvered and cast to indicate the 'official' nature of what is essentially a brass washer! To be fair, they do work very well, once again removing a lot of the unpredictability of using a mixed-bag of old coinage with differing thickness and weight.

The Rules of the Game of Shove Ha'penny

Since writing this piece almost ten years ago, little if any additional information has come to light about the Shove Ha'penny Control Association, though boards and tokens continue to come up for sale, an indication of how popular these relatively expensive items would have been. However, I recently acquired what would have been the 'official' rules for the game as prescribed by this 'august' body. Dated 1931, and with what seems a hefty shilling price-tag for such a slim volume of rules that presumably most players knew already! This booklet was originally included in the purchase of one of these slate boards, along with two sets of the Official Discs of the Shove Ha'penny Control Association. The rules themselves are pretty standard, in fact they're almost identical to a set of rules produced at a later date by John Jaques & Son Ltd, including the unusual 'Handicapping' system shown below. More interesting are the adverts that have been included in the booklet, the sum of which go a long way to answering the question of what the Shove Ha'penny Control Association actually was...

There's no mention of who actually manufactured these boards, either on the slates themselves or within the rules, but usefully there are a number of other items advertised that give a strong clue. These include slate scoreboards for Billiards and Darts, as well as two designs of slate-shelved Meat Stores, the 'Eureka' and 'Colstor'. Just a little research online confirms what Arthur Taylor had already revealed in his excellent 'Played At The Pub' book, that all these slate items were produced by Goddard & Son, producers of Slate and Slab products from a base in Battersea, London. Goddard supplied slate beds to many of the Billiard table manufactures of the time, Mr R.S Goddard himself inventing the unique ‘Multum In Parvo' (Much in Little) practice Billiard Table that the mighty Thurston Billiard Table manufacturer developed. I think this finally puts to rest the idea that the ‘Association’ was anything other than a bit of opportunistic marketing by a successful family business, attempting to exercise some measure of control, and therefore extend their interests in, the burgeoning market for competitive Shove Ha'penny.

The war years were a peak time for the game of Shove Ha'penny. A staple of village Tap Rooms and Public Bars almost everywhere. Boards were also supplied to the military, and the RAF in particular, for servicemen's recreation at home and overseas (a rare 'Wide Arrow' stamped board I acquired is now in the Jaques of London private games collection). So an inexpensive, highly skilled traditional pastime that quickly joined the ranks of pub and club league competition, and needless to say caught the eye of businessmen that were ever-alert to the potential of a new games market to be exploited.

I'd say that the vast majority of Shove Ha'penny (and Pushpenny) boards that are still played in pubs, or have subsequently come up for sale, are homemade or at best locally made by a skilled woodworker. Often re-purposed from redundant furniture or perhaps a cut-down bar counter, and as the name suggests, played using the smallest currency of the day. Little opportunity for money to be made from the game then, other than the pints that accompany an afternoon game or evening league match. Hence the desire here to codify the game, and sell the idea of just one 'official' manufacture of true 'league standard' boards and discs. Other manufacturers certainly produced boards in great quantities around this time, mostly from what Goddard infers as 'inferior' Mahogany, but only Goddard & Son attempted to take control of the game as a serious competition by producing 'definitive' rules, and 'league standard' slate boards of a patented design.

That there are so many of these slate Shove Ha'penny boards still out there is of course a testament to the (albeit limited) success of this strategy, as well as the undoubted quality of the boards themselves, It's clear however that Goddard, via their Shove Ha'penny Control Association, didn't in fact achieve the control of league competition they appear to have sought. Perhaps there just wasn't the desire from players to follow Darts as a standardised national game.

This rules book shows there were three designs of Shove Ha'penny Board available, the top quality 'Players' at £2:2:0, the 'Challenger' at £1:5:0, and the 'Imp' (right), the most basic slate at just 8/6. I have a couple of these Imp slates, they're very common, but I had no idea until now that they came from the same stable as these more expensive boards.