CHAMPIONSHIP EVEN FOR MARBLES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21180, 29 October 1938, Page 11

CHAMPIONSHIP EVEN FOR MARBLES

The presentation on a recent newsreel film of a Mr Briggs, of the Battlefield Academy Tennessee, as “the world’s marbles champion” created surprise, incredulity and a degree of resentment in the village of Tinsley Green, on the Surrey-Sussex border. For Tinsley Green claims to be the home of marbles and can prove that the game was played there regularly since before the days of the Spanish Armada.

The world marbles championship has in fact been played there every Good Friday for hundreds of years—recently, and since the game returned to popularity, upon the specially laid reinforced concrete marble beds, each of which weighs over a ton. Tinsley Green, acting through the M.C.B.—the Marbles Control Board, which is the M.C.C. of the game—at once sent a challenge to the United States inviting Mr Briggs to come over with an American team and prove his championship claim. If the money can be raised, a team of six English players will, alternatively, go to America. The Sussex and Surrey stars have intimidating names, and sound more like all-in wrestlers. They include Killer Cook, Champ Htrding, Fudge Killick, Smug Barratt and the Crawley Terror. The game, so far as its essential rules are concerned, has not changed during the centuries; if it acquires international status it will doubtless become fiercer. The distinguished players mentioned above may, in that case, be among the first to get their "caps” for England.