A Compendium of Pub Games Images - Pt.29

There really is no shortage of books, journals, blogs and other online writing about beer and brewing. It's a micro-genre with seemingly limitless potential for saying much the same thing, in slightly different ways, about a subject that's always attracted passionate interest, though perhaps none more so than in recent years with the arrival of so-called 'craft' beer. But then that's the very nature of the keen enthusiast, there's always another angle on your passion to write about, and rarely a shortage of fans to read about it. Quite why beer and brewing (and wine and spirits for that matter) generate such a demand for the written word, and yet the pub, the stage for so many of lifes dramas, trails so far behind, has puzzled me for many a year.

Pubs are certainly taken for granted, particularly by the 'locals' who use them more than most. Whilst enthusiasts like myself visit pubs just as often, if not more so than regular social drinkers, our 'passion' for the boozer is probably regarded as unusual, dare I say 'geeky' by the mass of regular pub-goers. So the pub, arguably as interesting a subject as the beer that passes over the bar, seems to be so deeply ingrained in normal day-to-day life that it's simply not regarded as being particularly newsworthy by most people, let alone worth taking the trouble to write about!

But if pubs are a neglected subject in print, it's perhaps ten-times so for traditional pub games which are rarely the subject of the written word. The current go-to book for the subject remains Played at the Pub by Arthur Taylor. This book was published over ten years ago now, and right now there seems little sign of a follow-up (although rumours persist that a book on skittles by Arthur is in the pipeline), which perhaps says something about the commercial viability of the subject. Slightly strange given that under normal circumstances, almost every day there are literally tens of thousands of men and women playing games at the pub, often competitively in long-established leagues. Yet this rarely warrants a mention, even in guides which feature the kind of pubs that rely heavily on league games play for their success. And it's not as if the field lacks personalities, just no one with the inclination to document them it would seem.

So we have to look to the past for information on these commonplace games. When the 'new' games of Darts, Billiards, and latterly Snooker took hold, there was a ready market for books on the subject. The cheap post-war booklet on Darts shown above even had a chapter on the humble game of Shove Ha'penny, presumably written for the benefit of wealthier folk venturing forth into a working class world of pubs and beerhouses they were probably unfamiliar with. The three-ball game of Billiards in particular spawned a whole library of books on technique and shots, often written by, or with the help of notable players of the day, and sponsored by the many cue sports manufactures at the time.

The booklet shown here is a War Office publication. This edition was produced in 1957, which was around the mid-point of the post-war conscription known as National Service. The many thousands of servicemen called-up at this time, when they weren't involved in peacetime duties at home or abroad, would have been pretty desperate for recreational diversion. This booklet covers the rules and practicalities of play for just about every team and competitive sport imaginable, but it's particularly interesting in the context of this blog for the inclusion of rules for Quoits and Skittles. The rules for Quoits were supplied by the English Quoiting Association, so pretty standard stuff that can be found easily enough elsewhere.

The Skittles section is a bit more interesting. The rules given are for the basic form of the game that'll be familiar to skittlers everywhere, but the equipment is for what's now known as Old English Skittles, heavy Hornbeam pins and discus-shaped Lignum Vitae 'cheeses'. A common enough game back then, but now played at just the one pub in Hampstead, London, to rules that are unique to the game (and the Cambridge Table Skittles League). Dimensions for the 'alley' and frame are included, as is a guide to felling the various broken skittle frames that is a major feature of this kind of skittles.

Another genre of books that really blossomed from the early 20th century onwards were guide books to the numerous 'Inns' of the country. Never 'pubs' mind! These were invariably produced for motorists, newly mobilised and eager to explore the more genteel highways and byways of Britain's countryside, possibly with a stopover in a traditional roadside Inn. Most are pretty dull affairs it must be said, focussing exclusively on 'famous old inns', market town hotels, and well-appointed roadhouses of the day. Not the back-street boozers and tumbledown village alehouses where drinking, Darts and Dominoes were the principal attraction.

This one from 1951 is better than most in that the focus is on Midlands Inns only, giving more detail than there would be in a national guide, and not merely a skim of the most upmarket or historic 'usual suspects'. The author was also keen to seek the assistance of the local brewers, which clearly put a different slant on things. There's a very good illustrated chapter on the breweries, as well as a rare acknowledgement that customers liked to play games, as shown in the terrific set of photographs shown below. I can't help thinking Norman Tiptaft really 'liked' pubs, even if the word Inns was probably more acceptable to the publishers.

This facsimile of an 18th century publication details the various games of Skittles once popular in rural areas of the country, presented with a moral zeal typical of 'educated' gentlemen of the time. It's a real eye-opener, and as clear an indication as your likely to find of what was regarded as the 'degeneration' of the game in Britain.

The author makes a strong argument for promotion of the 'manly exercise of skittle-playing' over the more 'effeminate' games lately introduced such as Cards and Dice. Games redolent of an '...over-fed age of people', their souls '...insipid with ease and sloth' leading to 'bog bellies, swelled legs, gouty feet, and other ailments of the loaded corpse'. Quite! Skittles is regarded as both good exercise, and in it's original form, a game of high skill and for recreation only, rather than an excuse to '...guzzle and drink'. Hmm!

The most basic version of the game of Skittles in this publication makes the current 3-ball, 9-pin standard played today seem like a childrens game in comparison (which is not to say that modern skittles is not a highly skilled game in experienced hands). The rules are, it must be said, quite bewildering to these eyes. There being different heights and scores for different pin positions in the frame, the highest scoring being the tall 'King Pin' at the centre, followed by the four corners or 'Nobles', then the 'Commons'. Even then, scoring depends on how the pins are actually toppled, the higher scores achieved by 'tipping' one pin onto another rather than being directly struck. It's fascinating if slightly impenetrable stuff, but perhaps the most interesting aspect of a book like this is that someone would take the trouble to travel the country and research the humble game of skittles at all!

That almost nothing on pub games ever makes it to print makes this hefty tome on a single West Country Skittles League all the more remarkable. Ron Holpin was heavily involved in the game in the Bristol area for much of the time this book covers, and as a local sports journalist, he obviously felt duty bound to record aspects of the Thornbury & District Skittles League that few others would even regard as noteworthy. It's a pretty dry affair for the most part it has to be said, details of every season, notable results, and the finishing league tables make up the bulk of the book (details that until recently would have featured in most local newspapers). But in amongst the dry detail are amusing anecdotes, and much social history around the game, those who play it, and of course the pubs and clubs where the game has been played in the immediate post-war years onwards. Whilst not exactly a bedtime thriller, it's a useful document, and would that all leagues produced something similar as a social document before the players who shaped the game are no longer with us.

Enthusiasm for the game of skittles, both competitively and as an important social pastime, is made clear throughout the book, even extending to a short chapter on 'other' skittles games. This includes the unique East Midlands game of Long Alley, illustrated with details of play and photographs of a game in progress (below). On a trip to the Midlands, Holpin visited notable Long Alley venue the Gate Inn at Loscoe in Nottinghamshire, arriving just as a game had commenced against Belpers Duke of Devonshire, a league match in the Belper & District Summer Skittles League. Outside of a handful of specialist pub games books, Arthur Taylors included of course, this may be the only time the humble, somewhat 'primitive' game of Long Alley Skittles has featured in print. The low-key nature of skittle alleys in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, often located outdoors and therefore easily missed by visitors, mean that this game is perhaps taken for granted more than most.

The Hurdler, Stamford, Lincolnshire (updated October 2020)

The Hurdler is one of only two classic estate pubs which remain in the upmarket town of Stamford (the other being the nearby Danish Invader, the Drum & Monkey and Northfields both having closed since this was originally posted in 2012) A large, open-plan locals pub with a central bar that I've no doubt would have been multi-room originally. Built to serve the needs of the post war housing which surrounds it, and like most pubs that are firmly embedded in their local communities, the Hurdler is a sport and games pub through and through. In fact the pub is named after a local sporting hero David Cecil (Lord Burghley), gold medallist at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. A sprightly hurdling gentleman on the pubs swinging sign commemorates his athletic prowess.

Cribbage, Darts, Dominoes, and Pool are the principal league games played at the Hurdler today, but the pub also field a team in Stamfords unique Pushpenny League. The league is currently running with just six pubs/clubs, a parlous state for any pub game league to be in. Let's hope the pubs of Stamford can keep this game going where others have sadly fallen by the wayside.

Update October 2020

Another sparse post from the early days of this blog, featuring a pub that I've been meaning to revisit for some time. In fact I have revisited The Hurdler a couple of times since then, just not with a camera in tow. So, what's new at The Hurdler?

Well it's had a bit of a refurb, though nothing too drastic. In fact I didn't notice any changes at all until I compared these photographs, so think more spruced-up than knocked about. As seems to be the case throughout their estate, Everards have ditched their familiar green livery for a slightly less 'corporate' blue, though thankfully they haven't gone the whole hog and painted everything pastel grey!

The most noticeable changes to the Hurdler on this most recent visit were the alterations for social distancing. The most notable being the ugly (and now entirely unnecessary given that the rules have changed to table service only!) Perspex screens across the bar servery, as well as a bit of floor tape around the sensibly spaced tables. The way things are looking at the moment, these are here to stay, though hopefully not for ever. It's a roomy pub inside anyway and with plenty of front and back garden space, so social distancing was hardly an issue on the late-Summer afternoon when I popped in for a pint. The recent 10pm curfew and enforced table service had been confirmed that day and was much more of a concern to the licensees. Wet-led estate pubs like this do more trade than most in the run-up to last orders, and the feeling was that this will hit their crucial weekend trade very hard indeed.

As you can see from these images, the Hurdler might be regarded as Stamfords premier games pub. In far better times than these the pub fields teams in all the local leagues, with match nights occurring throughout the week. Womens Darts and Pushpenny feature on Tuesday nights, Pool and Cribbage on Wednesday, with Mens Darts and Dominoes filling the Thursday slot. Needless to say, none of these leagues are currently operating, a particularly tough situation for pubs like the Hurdler which rely on the steady weekday trade that games bring throughout the year, particularly during the Winter months when the attractive garden to the rear of the pub is out of action.

I'm not entirely sure whether Darts and Pool were still being played at the Hurdler at the time I visited. Certainly not on a quiet midweek afternoon with just a small group of locals holding court near the bar. With table service now the rule, even these non-contact games are effectively barred from the pub, putting the three Dartboards at the Hurdler out of use for the time being.

The following images are from the original post back in 2012. At this time there were a couple of Pushpenny Boards in the bar, and of course the local Stamford Pushpenny League was up and running from around Autumn until early Summer. The league is currently defunct owing to social distancing rules, but has shrunk even further since my original blog post. The 2019/20 league fixtures (above) show the league running with just four teams from three pubs in the town, which by any standards represents a traditional pub game on the verge of extinction, a sad situation given that the Stamford League is one of only two for the game of Pushpenny in the country. Whether it will survive this latest setback remains to be seen.

These two Pushpenny Boards were kept in the bar when I visited back in 2012. Needless to say there's no sign of them now. The nearest was in regular use, made from a single piece of Mahogany and with a beautifully polished surface which is typical of these locally made competition boards. The other board is a little more workmanlike, and is in fact the reverse of a commercial Shove Ha'penny board (below). The principle difference between a Pushpenny Board and the more common Shove Ha'penny is the spacing of the nine beds, significantly wider in Pushpenny to accommodate the larger Pennies used in the Stamford game. The sloping run-off at the rear of this Pushpenny board can be clearly seen in the image above, a feature rarely seen in Shove Ha'penny but typical of these handmade Stamford boards.

Alma Tavern, Worcester

I guess it's inevitable that as the COVID lockdown was gradually eased, and businesses of all kinds finally allowed to reopen, some would question why pubs seemed to have been favoured ahead of other, perhaps equally deserving businesses and resources. In fact we know that there are some who question why pubs have been allowed to reopen at all given the potential for issues around alcohol and social distancing.

At this point I feel duty bound to disclose a personal interest. I love pubs! Pubs are important to me, perhaps more-so than they are to most regular pubgoers. Certainly I much prefer to drink my beer and cider in the mixed social environment of a pub rather than at home. But I also appreciate the way that pubs at their best are important social hubs, of huge importance to their locals as well as visitors like myself, and often the wider community through events and the huge amount of charitable fundraising that many pubs engage in. Of course if you don't like or use pubs, or merely view them as just another licensed restaurant option, this love of the pub might be a little difficult to understand.

Because pubs are not just about serving alcohol for profit, despite what certain sections of the popular press might have us believe. For some, particularly the elderly, they may be their only lifeline with a genuine shared social experience, and even those of us in a more privileged position still rely on the neutral space pubs provide for a genuinely 'open' social experience rather than a self-selecting, perhaps even insular one. Where else can you rub shoulders with such a wide social mix with the implicit understanding that conversation is not only possible, but often expected. Individually, pubs are special for all manner of reasons, but collectively the pub as a concept is special for entirely social reasons, something I believe may have become apparent to even the most casual of pubgoers during this dreadful pandemic. We can drink beer anywhere, the pub experience is only truly open to us at the pub.

Which brings me nicely to the Alma Tavern in Worcester and its hugely popular mascot Alma Bear. Along with all the nations pubs and clubs, the Alma closed its doors in May for what many of us believed at the time would be a relatively short time. As we now know, it would be months before a light appeared at the end of the lockdown tunnel. What has also become apparent is that many pubs, the Alma included, didn't just sit back on their laurels waiting for things to get better. A takeaway food and off-license service helped maintain a semblance of normality for many regular pubgoers, and many pubs have strived to maintain their connection with the local community through online events and charitable fundraising. Licensee of the Alma Tavern Will Bradley went one step further, taking to the streets as his alter-ego, Alma Bear!

While I was enjoying a pint and taking these photographs at the Alma Tavern recently, I was a little perplexed at the the almost constant tooting of car horns outside on the busy Droitwich road. That was until the barman helpfully explained about Alma Bear, the pubs locally famous furry mascot. Alma Bear was originally created by the licensee to help boost interest in the pubs Saturday Kids Craft Club, as well as being a popular attraction for childrens parties and the like. With the lockdown knocking all these initiatives on the head, Will decided that everybody could do with a bit of a cheer-up, taking Alma Bear 'on the road' with regular walkabouts in and around Worcester for socially distanced meet and greets. So Alma Bear was outside the pub that day, working the Saturday afternoon crowd, all thumbs-up and waves to great appreciation from the many travellers in and out of the city. Talk about popular! Practically everyone was waving back, huge smiles all round, a real tonic in these difficult times. This is what pubs at their best are all about, and this is why those of us who love them have welcomed the return of pub-going with such enthusiasm.

In common with almost all the pubs I've been to since reopening, the Alma has probably never looked better. De-cluttered and clean as a whistle, it's an attractive pub to be in even with the ubiquitous bar screens and social distancing signage. Another feature that's common to pubs at this time is the removal of the Dartboard. I doubt there's much of an issue around actually playing the game, more that it just doesn't fit in to the current social distancing regime where we're duty bound to choose a table and stay there as much as practicable. Televised sport is still on offer though, as is good food and a couple of decent real ales.

League Skittles and the pubs Skittle Alley are currently out of action too, but still serving a useful purpose as the pubs well-equipped function room, due to be pressed into service for the afternoon Football when I visited, part of managing the pub to help reduce crowding in the main bar areas.

Beauchamp Arms, Malvern, Worcestershire

The sprawl of settlements that lie at the base of the spectacular Malvern Hills, and the many pubs thereof, have become a happy hunting ground for us in recent years. Pubs of all shapes and sizes, well-patronised by locals it would seem, some with a good reputation for the beer and/or food, and perhaps surprisingly for such a touristy area, not all of them are dull, managed, food and family venues.

Top of the list for us is the very highly regarded Nags Head on the edge of the historic Great Malvern Spa Town. A really great beer pub in my experience, with good food in the adjacent restaurant, a tidy beer garden, and a true 'pubby' atmosphere in the low-beamed somewhat labyrinthine interior. Yes, it attracts a slightly upmarket clientele, but this is a pub that’s anything but exclusive, in fact it's one of my (many!) desert island pubs. Down the hill at Barnards Green you’ll find The Morgan, a regular Hereford Pale Ale and Cheese & Onion Roll stop for me. It's a locals pub that also attracts the tourists like ourselves (including the odd Morgan car enthusiast I'm sure). Perhaps a smidgen more earthy than the Nags, but a pub you’d be more than happy to take your mum to, particularly in the Summer months when the beautifully maintained patio garden really comes into its own.

Which brings me to the largely residential area located to the north of Link Common, a more urban, or at least suburbun part of the wider Malvern community centred on the smaller Malvern Link rail station. The pubs in this area are of particular interest to me, being somethat less touristy, and a fair bit more 'Darts & Dominoes' in character. Practically all of these pubs are traditional 'locals' with a strong pub games interest, and this includes a cluster of venues for the local Mens and Ladies Skittles leagues.

The Beauchamp Arms certainly fits this mould. A fairly typical, largely unspoilt town centre boozer situated within a row of shops and other local amenities. It's also one of the closest pubs to the rail station, though equally accessible via a pleasant walk across the common from Great Malvern. An attractive, grade II listed building to the front, a pair of shallow bay windows flanking the entrance being the pubs principle historic feature. Inside, the pub has been opened-out at some point to a single bar area, though it's easy enough to discern the original three room layout from its 19th century origins as a Showell's Brewery pub.

Bar areas to the left and right feature original bench seating which follows the line of those big bay windows. Note too that the original heating pipes that would have kept drinkers warm in the winter are still in situ below this seating (right), a once common feature of basic bar rooms like this one. A number of Bell Pushes (above) also survive in what would have originally been the Lounge or Smoke Room, though now unused of course. This highly civilised aspect of bar service has now almost entirely vanished from pubs, though ironically table service is now back in vogue under the current social distancing rules. These bell pushes would have been used to summon a waiter or other member of staff for table service in the 'posher' of the three original rooms, usually incurring a small service charge for the privelage.

Today the Beauchamp is an entirely wet-led pub, a place for a chat over a pint, as well as the pub staples of games, televised sport, and until the recent national shut-down, a growing reputation for live music in the function room/skittle alley at the rear of the pub.

That almost all of the pubs in the Malvern area have now re-opened following the lockdown is heartening to see, but pubs like the Beauchamp will take a long time to get back to anything like normal under the current rules and restrictions. Bar rooms that would normally be alive with the rattle and hum of Darts, Dominoes, and Cribbage play are inevitably struggling with the social-distancing rules. Traditional pub games that are the lifeblood of community locals like the Beauchamp are exactly those which are deemed too risky, and therefore out of bounds. I very much look forward to a return visit to the Malverns area in the near future, ideally in happier, more socially interactive times when the Beauchamp Arms and other community locals in the area are free to trade at their very best.

The function room to the rear of the pub is entirely self-contained for entertainment of all kinds. There's a Pool Table, Dartboard, separate bar, and the kind of Skittle Alley that can be packed away so as to avoid it being a tripping hazard when not in use. The slatted playing surface is of course permanent, but the left-hand retaining wall is removable and stored behind a set of doors which conceal the actual business end of the alley (below) when not required.

The Beauchamp is active in just about all the local games leagues, including those for Mens and Ladies Skittles, all now mothballed of course until next Summer at the very earliest. It looks as if the Malvern & District Cribbage League may have just managed to wrap up competition ahead of pubs and clubs closing in March, sadly not all leagues were quite so lucky.

Plough Inn, Hereford

When pubs were forced to close way back in March, there was a great deal of uncertainty around how, or indeed 'if' many of them would ever find a way to open again. Even now, and allowing for the ongoing threat of local lockdowns, some pubs have of course not reopened. Sadly some may never reopen. Of those that have, it's far from certain how many are trading at anything like a profitable level, which is worrying given the widely held belief that things may take a turn for the worse, particularly as Winter approaches and beer gardens start to lose their appeal.

From a customer perspective, safety is probably the biggest single issue determining whether people are happy to return to the pub. Everyone deals with risk differently, and it's perhaps inevitable that some are putting caution ahead of the resumption of their drinking pleasure at this time. Perhaps the biggest uncertainty for pub-lovers like myself ahead of reopening was how the necessity for social-distancing was going to work in such a highly social environment. Just how good an experience would going to the pub actually be when so much of the casual human interaction that makes the pub special is effectively denied to us! Well many pubs have been open for a few weeks now, and those of us who feel safe to do so have had a good opportunity to see how things look under the new guidelines.

I have to say that for the most part it's been an entirely positive experience. Of well over a dozen venues that I've visited recently, from village inns, to town-centre locals and micropubs, the systems in place have worked well. Customers are for the most part following the rules, and it has been possible to socialise, albeit at more of a distance than most of us would like. Of course traditional games of all types, and the leagues that support local competition have sadly all-but disappeared from pubs for the time being.

Most pubs are still very quiet of course, and whilst the media continue to hawk for advertising with the usual sensationalist reporting around anything to do with alcohol, examples of over-crowded pubs and people ignoring the rules are few and far between in my experience. Most people seem to understand that if pubs are to remain open, they really do need to follow the rules no matter how onerous they are, or what their opinion of them might be. This very welcome 'Indian Summer' of pub-going remains a fragile thing that could end at any time, which makes it doubly important that we get out there and safely enjoy the pub experience while it lasts.

One thing I haven't had much of a chance to test under the current restrictions is the ease, or otherwise, of finding new material for this blog. I think that many of us envisaged there would be quite strict controls on personal movement within pubs. Certainly no hanging around at the bar or wandering about between socially distanced groups. With all that's happened, and all the changes and preparations required to reopen safely, how would already stressed licensees and bar staff react to a polite request to take a few photographs in their pub, perhaps even explore parts of the building that are currently not in use? I have to say, I was expecting to receive, and fully prepared to accept a firm but fair 'No!' in this regard.

But that's to forget that most licensees work in the hospitality industry for a very good reason. They are, for the most part, eminently hospitable people! Of the hundreds of pubs and clubs I've visited over the years, only a couple of licensees have flatly refused to allow me to take pictures, and the vast majority are more than happy to show-off their pub, and keen to chat about the trade and their own part in it. It helps of course that I choose my time carefully, usually aiming to visit at the least busy times of the day when staff are less rushed and there's less likelihood of startling the locals with my camera. As an aside, this is why so many of the photos on this blog are of seemingly empty pubs.

The Plough certainly wasn't empty when I popped in recently, it's just that it was an absolute scorcher of a day in Hereford, and the garden has many shady and attractive corners for a cool pint and a natter. It's in the garden that you'll also find the pubs creeper-clad Skittle Alley (right), one of the principle reasons for my visit of course.

Now the first time I attempted to photograph the skittle alley and interior of the Plough was around 5 years ago. Unfortunately, on that occasion new licensees were in the middle of moving in to the pub, and in no position to give me a tour, so I thought it best not to ask. I took a quick photo of the then creeper-free skittle alley (left) and determined to return another day. So given the current difficult situation, with many pubs only recently reopened and finding their feet, I was just a little more apprehensive than usual when I finally got to return to the Plough. I really needn't have been though, because the welcome was warm, and the licensees happy to accommodate me and my roving camera.

The Plough sits a short way out from the town centre, a pub I'd describe as something between suburban community local, and modest roadhouse on the busy main road out of Hereford toward Wales. The current mock half-timbered corner pub was built in the 1930's by the Hereford and Tredegar Brewery replacing a much older Inn of the same name. The original layout of Public Bar and Smoke Room has been opened out somewhat, but still survives to the extent that two distinct areas remain. One of these is now effectively a games area with Pool Table, Dartboard, and until recently a traditional Quoits Board, now relocated to the skittle alley (see below). Sadly both the mens and ladies leagues for Quoits in Hereford folded quite recently, and I think it's been a while since the Plough fielded a team in competition anyway. Nevertheless, it's good to see that the board is still at the pub and available to play on request, though you'll have to bring your own Quoits as the pub currently has none available. The Plough seems to have had a skittle alley from before the 1930's rebuild, but whether the current one is in the same location I'm not entirely sure.

One thing that's become apparent to me over the last few weeks is that during the run-up to reopening, many licensees have not only prepared well for the new social distancing rules, but also taken the opportunity to give their pubs a bit of a spruce-up. This has clearly been the case at the Plough Inn which is immaculate throughout, and I'm pleased to say that the licensees were not merely happy to show me the pubs skittle alley, they were positively keen to show off their recent handiwork. It's often the case that during the off-season, skittle alleys can look a bit tatty and unloved, frequently used as storage space for garden furniture and the like. The alley at the Plough is as tidy as you'll find anywhere, freshly painted and ready for play whenever that might finally occur.

In much better times the Plough Inn field teams in the Hereford & District Invitation Skittles League, the towns principal skittles league for over 100 years. Seasoned skittlers might wonder why the Hereford league use 10-pin bowling style skittles rather than the usual stubby pins of the West Country game. Initially I thought this was a relatively modern convenience, reusing redundant pins from bowling alleys. Since then I've seen numerous team photos from the very earliest days of the league around the turn of the century which clearly feature this unique style of pin. It seems that Hereford folk just do things differently when it comes to pub games.