One of the plus points about leaving the dubs is that you can indulge yourself in team games! This is a description of my team game:
It's the start of the skittles season here in the West of England. In WSM, about half of the pubs have a skittle alley, and league matches take place every Friday night in most of them. On Fridays, I play skittles!
Skittles is the fore-runner to 10 pin bowling, but there the similarity ends.
Each competing team has 12 players who play in 4 sets, 3 guys against 3 guys.
Each player makes 6 visits and throws 3 balls each visit. As their are only nine pins, the maximum scoreable each visit is 27. Here's how the skittles are laid out:
A typical match takes 3 hours, by which time most of us are absolutely blitzed on beer. In fact, the drunker you are the better you play. It's incredibly noisy and boisterous, but there are definite rules of protocol which must be obeyed. This rule is the most inportant one:
It is perfectly permissable to abuse / insult / chant to a player whilst he is taking his shots at the skittles, providing he is a player for your own side.
That's right, you can only insult your own team mates. So, when I bounce the ball too much, my team will burst into a rousing chorus of The Dambusters. Or they may suggest, in song, that a player should never have been born.
Last night, the opposing team had a player listed as one Antonio Fella, ah, I thought, this guy has to be an Italian. Sure enough, when he came up to play, the opposing side burst into O sole mio, which did seem to encourage him somewhat.
Did we win? Funnily enough I can't remember!
So what do you reckon? Who here has taken up a sport or team game since leaving the dubs?
Maybe you could tell us about it?
Englishman.