British and World Marbles Championship

This ancient event takes place each year on Good Friday and has been played annually in its current format, since 1932 at the Greyhound public house in Tinsley Green, West Sussex, is a team event, where teams of six players participate in a marbles knock-out tournament to win the title and a silver trophy. The event is open to anyone of any age or nationality and over the years players from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Wales and United States have participated alongside the English teams.

The tournament dates back over four century's to 1588 during the reign of Elizabeth I, when marbles was chosen to be the deciding game of a legendary sporting encounter between two young suitors, Giles and Hodge, over the hand of a Tinsley Green milk maiden named Joan. Every popular sport of the day were contested, in an Olympic style contest lasting one week. Hodge had been victorious at singlestick, backsword, quarter staff, cudgel play, wrestling and cock throwing, while Giles was successful in winning the archery, cricket-a-wicket, tilting at quintain (jousting targets), Turk’s head, stoolball and tipcat. With the score level at 6 - 6, Good Friday was the date chosen for the final event, and marbles was chosen by the girl to be the deciding game, and Giles defeated Hodge.

The championships are organised by the British Marbles Board of Control (BMBC) and the version of marbles played is "Ring Taw", known in USA as "Ringer" and in Germany as "Englisches Ringspiel". Forty-nine target marbles are grouped closely together on 6 foot diameter (1.8 metre) raised concrete ring covered with sand. Each of the target marbles is a glass or ceramic sphere having a diameter of approximately 12mm (half an inch). Two teams of six players of any age, gender or skill level, take turns to drive marbles off the ring by aiming a larger "shooter", also known as a "taw" or "tolley". which is a glass or ceramic sphere of 18mm diameter (three-quarters of an inch). A player's knuckle must be touching the ground when shooting, known as "knuckling down". Moving the tolley closer to the target marbles "cabbaging" is forbidden, as is any forward or other advantageous movement of a players shooting hand during shooting, which constitutes a foul known as "fudging". Any intentional or persistent contact between a player's clothing and a marble or tolley while it is motion, commits a foul called "blocking". No score results from a foul shot, which automatically ends the turn of the offending player, though the score achieved in that turn stands. Any player who makes three foul shots during a game is eliminated from that game. The first team to knock out 25 marbles from the ring is the winner.

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