Team takes Aunt Sally on tour (From The Oxford Times)

Team takes Aunt Sally on tour

11:30am Friday 2nd November 2012 in News By Pete Hughes, Reporter. Call me on 01865 425431

OXFORDSHIRE’S favour-ite pub game Aunt Sally has gone on tour. Cowley Conservative Club’s Aunt Sally team went to Portugal to spread the word about their number one pastime.

Ex-pat Jeff Beil from Wheatley invited the club over last month and arranged a friendly between them and the locals.

Residents in the village of Vale Fuzeiros, in the southern region of Faro, took to the sport with great enthusiasm after the 12-man Oxford team showed them how to play. Club chairman Doug Turner said: “After a few demonstration throws by the Con club, the villagers became really interested and joined in a match between two mixed teams of ‘professionals’ and locals.

“The match was played in great spirit.”

The owners of the Bar O-Gralia, in Vale Fuzeiros where Mr Beil lives, played host to the tourists.

Club member Peter Surman, 54, said: “We set up the alley right next to the bar, and they put on a meal for us as well. They want us to go back next year now, and they said they will be practising. I reckon they will be beat us next time.”

The Story Behind The Game:

Aunt Sally has been around for several hundred years, and it is thought to have originated in Oxfordshire.
It is played by throwing batons at a “doll” – a wooden skittle known as Aunt Sally.
One theory traces its origin to Royalist cavaliers stationed in Port Meadow during the Civil War. The soldiers created a game similar to skittles, where the aim was to throw at the effigy of a woman’s head, with a pipe sticking out of her mouth, and break the pipe. Today, the game remains most popular in Oxfordshire. To view a list of leagues go to trad games. org.uk