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British and World Marbles Championship
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British and World Marbles Championship
The British and World Marbles Championship is a marbles knock-out tournament that takes place annually on Good Friday and dates back to 1588. It is held at the Greyhound public house in Tinsley Green, West Sussex. Teams of six players participate to win the title and a silver trophy. The event is open to anyone of any age or nationality. Over the years, players from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Wales and the United States have participated alongside English teams.
The most recent event took place on World Marbles Day, Bank Holiday Good Friday, April 18, 2025, where the German teams won their first tournament since 2019.
The tournament dates back to 1588 during the reign of Elizabeth I, when marbles was chosen as 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 was played 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 had won at 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. Marbles was chosen by the girl to be the deciding game, and Giles defeated Hodge.
Marble tournaments have purportedly been played at Tinsley Green since the late 1500s, until the launching of the current event in 1932. Local historians have concluded that around that time, many individual county marble championships were amalgamated to create the British Marble Championships, which was only renamed as the British and World Marbles Championship for the first time in 1938.
The 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The championship resumed in 2022.
The championships are organized by the British Marbles Board of Control (BMBC) and the version of marbles played is Ring Taw, known in the United States as "Ringer" and in Germany as "Englisches Ringspiel". Forty-nine target marbles are grouped closely together in 6-foot diameter (1.8-metre) raised concrete ring covered with sand, each of the target marbles being a coloured 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 using the tip of the finger to aim and project the "tolley", a larger marble (commonly referred to as the "shooter" or "taw"), which is a glass or ceramic sphere of 18mm diameter (three-quarters of an inch), deploying top spin, back spin and side spin, to drive other marbles out of the ring.
A player's knuckle must be touching the ground when shooting, known as "knuckling down". Moving the tolley closer to the target marbles, known as "cabbaging", is forbidden - as is any other advantageous movement of a players shooting hand during shooting. These would constitute a foul known as "fudging". Any intentional or persistent contact between a player's clothing and a marble or tolley while it is motion would be a foul called "blocking". No score results from a foul shot. A foul shot 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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British and World Marbles Championship
The British and World Marbles Championship is a marbles knock-out tournament that takes place annually on Good Friday and dates back to 1588. It is held at the Greyhound public house in Tinsley Green, West Sussex. Teams of six players participate to win the title and a silver trophy. The event is open to anyone of any age or nationality. Over the years, players from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Wales and the United States have participated alongside English teams.
The most recent event took place on World Marbles Day, Bank Holiday Good Friday, April 18, 2025, where the German teams won their first tournament since 2019.
The tournament dates back to 1588 during the reign of Elizabeth I, when marbles was chosen as 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 was played 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 had won at 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. Marbles was chosen by the girl to be the deciding game, and Giles defeated Hodge.
Marble tournaments have purportedly been played at Tinsley Green since the late 1500s, until the launching of the current event in 1932. Local historians have concluded that around that time, many individual county marble championships were amalgamated to create the British Marble Championships, which was only renamed as the British and World Marbles Championship for the first time in 1938.
The 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The championship resumed in 2022.
The championships are organized by the British Marbles Board of Control (BMBC) and the version of marbles played is Ring Taw, known in the United States as "Ringer" and in Germany as "Englisches Ringspiel". Forty-nine target marbles are grouped closely together in 6-foot diameter (1.8-metre) raised concrete ring covered with sand, each of the target marbles being a coloured 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 using the tip of the finger to aim and project the "tolley", a larger marble (commonly referred to as the "shooter" or "taw"), which is a glass or ceramic sphere of 18mm diameter (three-quarters of an inch), deploying top spin, back spin and side spin, to drive other marbles out of the ring.
A player's knuckle must be touching the ground when shooting, known as "knuckling down". Moving the tolley closer to the target marbles, known as "cabbaging", is forbidden - as is any other advantageous movement of a players shooting hand during shooting. These would constitute a foul known as "fudging". Any intentional or persistent contact between a player's clothing and a marble or tolley while it is motion would be a foul called "blocking". No score results from a foul shot. A foul shot 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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