Dominoes - A Great British Pub Game

This illustration from the 1955 book 'Know The Game - Inn Games' helps explain why Dominoes was so popular in the mid-late 20th century. No matter how competitive the players,  how serious the game, Dominoes never interferes with the far more serious business of smoking, drinking, and socialising that's at the heart of all great pub pursuits.

When the Dartboard was elevated from its humble position in the public bar to prime-time television in the 1970's, it helped secure Darts as the most high-profile and popular of all traditional pub games (albeit that Pool gave it a run for its money in the 90's). It's slipped-back a little in the public eye since then, but nevertheless I'd suggest that Darts remains the game most strongly associated with the pub. Not for me though! Whilst I fully appreciate the skills on show in the game, even in the humble public bar, I'm literally rubbish at Darts and rarely give it more than a passing glance if I'm honest.

Dominoes is the game I play most of all in the pub, and the one that I most strongly associate with pubs and clubs, certainly the more traditional ones which are the pubs I like the most. As a game it's not necessarily my favourite. I have more of an 'interest' in games of skill and dexterity like Shove Ha'penny, and regional specialities like Indoor Quoits and the various local Skittles variants. But Dominoes for me is the pub game I get the most pleasure from playing, and the one I enjoy seeing others play more than most, certainly more than Darts anyway. That's because Dominoes is, at heart, a highly sociable pub pastime. In fact I often describe a game of Dominoes as being little more than something to do with your hands whilst drinking beer and chatting. At least that's how I play it anyway...

Domino sets (and cards) remain relatively common in pubs, even if the game is not nearly as popular as it once was. Even upmarket hotels and gastro-pubs tend to have a box of Dominoes tucked away somewhere, and it's one of the few traditional pub games that are ideally-suited to micropubs where space is often at a premium.

That there are still plenty of old Domino sets around, including antique bone and vintage bakelite examples, is largely down to the fact that Dominoes was hugely popular in pubs and clubs until relatively recently. It's only in the last few decades that the game has struggled for the kind of patronage it enjoyed in the latter half of the 20th century, a time when league play was ubiquitous in all parts of the country, as it still is in some areas.

Dominoes in Britain is very much a local, or at most regional game these days, but in the late 1970's a national competition based on the popular game of Fives and Threes was devised, sponsored initially by Mann's Brewery. Seven regional heats led to the national finals, and by 1980 this had been expanded to eight heats with the Sunday People joining the sponsorship. This nascent competition seems to have been short-lived, but the idea stuck and a national Dominoes event was resurrected in 1985. This competition ran very successfully for around 20 years, with the finals eventually settling in the seaside town of Bridlington, the local council sponsoring the event in its final years. Though Fives and Threes might still be regarded as the national game, the British National Domino Championship finally folded in 2007. Though there are a number of International/World Domino competitions currently running, the only national Championships still in existence in Britain is the one run by the Club & Institute Union (CIU), a long-standing competition open only to members of affiliated clubs.

Wherever the game of Dominoes is played with any degree of seriousness, weekend play often takes the form of the lunchtime 'Domino School'. This takes the form of one or more games of doubles, open to anyone that's keen to play and with the patience to wait their turn for a place at the table(s). In one of my regular weekend drinking pubs, a highly sociable Sunday game has been observed for decades, and a simple knock on the bar counter signals your desire to join the table for a game. I recall the licensee of the White Lion in Oakham (now closed) telling me how the Sunday 'school' was so popular at his pub in the 80's that customers would effectively queue up for a game, sometimes in vain given the strictly limited opening hours that pubs observed in those days. The Domino School was both practice for the serious league players, and an opportunity for novices like myself to learn or improve their game, and maybe even progress to the pub team when the old-guard deemed that you'd 'graduated'.

Dominoes remains popular throughout the county of Shropshire, and none more so than at the excellent Cross Foxes in the Belle Vue area of Shrewsbury. Table-toppers drilled with a Crib Board for scoring are available, and the walls are richly decorated with shields and trophies testifying to success for the pubs Darts and Dominoes teams.

There are of course a great many different games that can be played with a standard 6-spot set of Dominoes, some of which remain staples of the pub and club scene. The standard 'block' game, where the aim is simply to get rid of your own tiles first whilst blocking your opponents, is often the game played by friends out for a social drink. As a youthful apprentice in the 80's, the Friday lunchtime drinks session at the Royal Oak in Wigston, Leics (now closed) was often accompanied by a lengthy game of Dominoes. This was played as a 'block' game where the losing players would throw in a penny-a-spot, modest winnings even by the standards of the early 80's! The block game is also the one favoured by the West Indian community, though I've yet to see it played in a pub on my travels, serious competition now more likely to be played in the social clubs and conference facilities of hotels. I've also seen Matador played in the pub.

The game that pubs and clubs are most strongly associated with, and the basis of league play in most parts of the country as far as I can tell, is Fives and Threes. In this game, players lay tiles to match in the same way as the block game, but with the aim of achieving multiples of five and/or three on the open ends of the dominoes. Scoring is usually on a standard Cribbage Board, the winning player or pair being the first to finish exactly on 61 (or 121). A leagues match will often consist of both singles and doubles matches, with various knockout and cup matches played throughout the season too. Fives and Threes is the game that I play, and whilst there's obviously a big element of luck in which tiles you initially draw, meaning even a newcomer can win games, it's also true to say that the better players, the ones who count the spots and even exercise a little bit of bluff in play, tend to come out on top more often. Which is of course the whole basis of league play, you're in it for the long-haul, playing the averages rather than settling for the occasional lucky win.

Winners medals are still sometimes awarded at the end of the league season, though trophies and shields are now much more common. Solid silver medals like the one above (Fattorini & Sons, Birmingham 1959) are now very much a thing of the past. Sadly this one doesn't appear to have been used so there are no league or winners details engraved on the back. The choice of tiles on this medal is suggestive of the game it was designed for. In Fives and Threes, two of the most important tiles are the double five, and six-three, one or other of which is needed to create the highest scoring combination of fifteen spots which scores eight points (fifteen is a multiple of three fives and five threes, so 5+3=8).

Practically every aspect of games play at the pub has provided an opportunity for drinks and tobacco companies to advertise their wares. Blue Bell Tobacco on this Cribbage Board, and Leicester (more probably Burton-on-Trent at this time) brewers Everards supplying this heavily branded set of Dominoes. Even Everards themselves are not sure when these early plastic Dominoes first saw use in their estate.


This set of Dominoes (above) from the long-closed Bell Inn is on display at the Rutland County Museum in Oakham. Just another small but important aspect of working class social history, an everyday heritage which is being lost every day. I'm not sure how common it was to read your fortune with Dominoes, but this old newspaper cutting (below) reveals the secrets of the tiles should you feel the need...

The Castle Hotel, Wem, Shropshire

In the dark days before the craft beer boom, when massively hopped pale ales were the preserve of homebrewers with faulty scales, and barrel-aged sours an old-fangled Belgian speciality, regional breweries reigned supreme in the sleepy provinces of England. And for the most-part that was a good thing.

The Midlands was pretty well served with regional tastes, with even the larger Burton brewers churning out passable sweetish session beers and classic dark milds. True, the choice of beer styles was abysmal, but for lovers of truly sessionable beers in proper local pubs, hindsight tells us that we'd really never had it so good. Until we went on holiday that is...

North Shropshire was somewhere I visited quite regularly in the 90's, sometimes by barge, one of the most drink-friendly ways of getting around rural pubs. I quickly grew to love the area for it's traditional pubs and green hilly vistas, but not it has to be said its rather dull beer. Back then, the unholy trinity of Whitbread brewed Chesters, Greenall Whitley, and Wem Ales held sway in this neck of the woods, and a blander selection of beers you couldn't hope to find. Dreadfully cheap post-war concoctions, and the very worst 60's keg bitters and milds, begrudgingly casked to cater for the growing demand for real ale.

So the village of Wem hasn't been high on my list of go-to places for the past few decades, stigmatised in my mind by association, which is pretty daft I know but then I 'really' didn't like Wem Ales! All three of these breweries have now passed into the brewing history books, their timely closure creating space locally for newer, far better beers. Salopian of Shrewsbury is the new small regional in Shropshire, and a revived Joule's Brewery has a presence in many of the towns and larger villages around their base in Market Drayton, which happily for me includes Wem where the brewery run not one, but two of the village pubs.

Joule's were a massive Staffordshire brewing concern that eventually fell victim to takeover and subsequent closure by Bass in the 1970's. The brewery was revived in 2010, and has rapidly expanded its pub estate to 40 'Tap Houses', representing a wide cross-section of village and town-centre communities but with a common theme. The house style is very traditional, with plenty of wood on show and retaining as much of the heritage and character of the pub as possible, as it has been at The Castle Hotel in Wem. I've no idea what The Castle was like prior to Joule's acquisition, but chatting with the hospitable locals, the consensus is they've done a marvellous job of refurbishing and revitalising the pub. Multiple rooms serve different functions, including a large dining area and adjoining lounge-bar, and a public bar which manages to be both plainly functional and cosily comfortable. The Joule's Pale Ale was in superb condition, and went a long way to banishing those earlier memories of dull Shropshire beer.

The public bar functions as the space for games play at the pub, Darts and Dominoes the principal games on offer. A good few of the more traditional pubs we visited in Shrewsbury and to the north are conspicuously Dominoes pubs, none more so than the Castle where a game had just finished when we arrived on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. Handy, as we had our own mini-tournament running through the week and this gave us the opportunity for a quick game to move things on. The two gentlemen who'd just finished their game are stalwarts of the local Wem Darts & Dominoes League, and were more than happy to answer my questions about the pub and league. Both the Dominoes and Darts teams at The Castle are firmly mid-table in the league, but the Dominoes team are proud holders of the Consolation Knockout Shield (below) for the 2018/19 season.

The Wem league commenced as a competition shortly after the war in 1948, making the current 2018/19 season its 70th anniversary year. 12 teams compete in each of the two sections from pubs and clubs in and around Wem, which is a healthy enough number though down from 14 teams in the 2011/12 season.

"...and the winner of 'Four Best Domino Players In Wem' goes to..."

The equipment for Dominoes play can be found easily enough, a pair of table-toppers and brass Crib Boards located beneath the Domino Clock to the left of the bar counter (below). The Dartboard may be less easy to find, often hidden as it is behind a door that carries the scoreboard (bottom).