Saturday 6 March 2021

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.

21 comments:

cockneybarrowboy said...

Hi,
I have the same board in similar condition along with the five discs.
I found it in an antique shop in Kalk Bay, Cape Town. Although I'd never sell it, what do you thing one would fetch on the open market.
Thanks, Robert

Anonymous said...

I have a similar board marked British Shove Ha'penny Board of Control. I paid £20 for it at an antiques market thirty plus years ago and it was borrowed from me by Burlington Slate Company (Cumbria) in 1984 so that they could copy the slate details (not the surround) for a customer in , I seem to recall, Saudie Arabia.
How much it is worth? I've no idea. I've not seen one for sale since I found mine.

Mark said...

I've no idea how much they might be worth, only that mine was £50, and on the rare occasions they appear on eBay etc. they're usually asking for £100 or more. Having said that, I don't know whether they actually sell for that much. I'd say these are one of the best quality boards that were 'manufactured', but I've seen much bigger slate boards, and much better surfaces on old Mahogany Shove Ha'pennys.

Unknown said...

I found a manufacturer in the US that still makes the boards at a reasonable price, but they are solid wood rather than slate. They can be found at Backyard TailGator

David said...

Hi I have a disc/coin if anyone's interested

Anonymous said...

Having acquired a set of five of these "official" discs, I have tried to trace their origin via their claimed registered design number. No success, the registered design number is not in the UK government, nor international design databases, nor is any mention of "Shove Ha'Penny Control Association" further supporting the notion that such an association was in reality just a marketing ploy. No closer to dating the discs, I'm afraid.

Matt Probert
Antique and collectable dealer and researcher

Mark said...

Thanks for that Matt. I tend to agree. Shove Ha’penny seems to have been ubiquitous in the early 20th century, and this was around the time commercial concerns were aiming to move the game from one where boards etc. were locally made, with inherent wide variation, to one where it was played on ‘standard’ manufactured boards. A game which could be standardised and therefore exploited by business. It’s no surprise that one company would try (unsuccessfully!) to codify and control the game for their own gain in much the same way as has been acheived in other games such as Darts.

Unknown said...

Would anyone know where I can get five old discs I have a slate bed and I used to play when I lived in Bath back in Wales and would love to get the game going again.

Dave King said...

My father had one of these boards many years ago, no one knows where it is now. We looked in to the Registered Design at the time (1980's probably) and got a copy from The Public Record Office. A long hunt later and I have found it. Reference number is BT52/1393. The wording is a little different and the bed numbers go up from 9 to 1 instead of the 'normal' way.
Nowadays we can search the Newspaper Archives which brings up 4 references to the association including one praising them for promoting the game and two surprised that it existed!
They are all between 1932 and 1935.

Unknown said...

any idea what the value of these boards are now?

Mark said...

Hard to say as they rarely come up for sale. The Challenger boards seem to be much more common, including cheaper plastic framed and branded versions. These go for maybe £40 so these top-range slates are maybe £60+ depending on condition. The prices asked by dealers can sometimes be ridiculous though. It's always worth keeping in mind that other than the genuinely antique models, often homemade, Shove Ha'penny boards of all types are not rare and frankly not that desirable.

John Penny said...

I have a slate board from 'Alfred Merewood of Portsmouth' which is a beut and plays well, although I am wont to be generous with the French chalk. However my favourite is a wooden one made by my late Great Uncle whom sadly I never met as he passed in 1943. Interestingly he made the beds 1 3/8" so definitely non-standard!

Thanks for yet another interesting a well-written article Mark - keep up the good work (and research)

Mark said...

Thanks John, much as I like my ‘Players’ slate, there really is nothing to compare with an old piece of timber, heavily patinated with use, ideally homemade by someone with a bit of skill in woodworking. A true piece of social history, I just wish more people would dust them off and play the game.

Dave King said...

We often get the shove ha'penny, snooker bagatelle or crib board out when my family meet up, looking forward to that happening again when Covid permits. I've got two Player boards and a Challenger.
One of the Player boards is marked as made by Goddard and Son, SW2. It has a cast brass surround which was nickel plated but this is largely worn off. The typeface used is plainer, it has "Authorized" instead of "Authorised" and the round hole which usually has "number of beds" has "Agreed number of discs per bed". It still has Pat. applied for and Reg design no. 746113. The slate is slightly plum coloured. I can't decide if it is older or newer than your one.
Would you like pictures?

Mark said...

Thanks for that Dave, if you could send some pics to markshirley54@btinternet.com I’ll add them to this post with a credit yo yourself. Always nice to be as complete as possible. Things tend to get simplified over time in manufacture so I wonder whether yours is older.

Christopher D. Faust Sr. said...

I recently became aware of this game and the association due to a bag of coins that contained the tokens. however these tokens were made of only one metal and were not milled so I am guessing they are not from the 1930s. Any idea of when these are from and possible market interest as they did not come with a board. Thank you for the information you did provide.

Christopher D. Faust Sr. said...

If there is still interest in getting some tokens I recently ran across a few mixed in with a bag of non US coins.
Leave comment with a way to contact and I will see what I can do.

Frank T said...

Hi Christopher - How many tokens do you have? Id like to buy 10 depending what price you want for them - you can email me at deedo773@msn.com - Thank you - Frank

Steve said...

I’ve recently purchased one of these antique boards and a nice set of 5 ‘official’ silver discs. The game seems really interesting, but a shame it’s not more popular it would be great to see some kind of revival.

Dave said...

I am looking for a set of the official coins.Anyone have any or know where I can get any? I am living in Somerset England.Thank you.

Mark said...

Probably best to keep an eye on eBay, they come up as singles, occasionally sets, but seem quite desirable and can go for quite a bit. There’s a pair on there now: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165838891426?hash=item269cc4a9a2:g:2p8AAOSwG4tjHbc3&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoH7Mx7SM3QAsxcOuTYyzi%2FF%2B9Rn%2BJi3yxOfhs%2B7ZABP6ub8HIuc4v3tM1F4ef2a9ENGhdn5mhyP9reI68Dbbi9xMOxcGGtfWdS8%2FCVOxc9651NIuS2NAwBpu7qbFoucV1om0DjQa3pVGwnXqTPCQJ9vmk5OqUqa6mK%2F9Ka2TZ1ZpylaRiYt9Vu0cyP5dfhrSpO2MGo5epBcrrZ4zc2LZqlo%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_TeyMikYQ