Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Basic rules of skittles are there are nine wooden pins,
this is one of them, and they're arranged in a diamond.
You have three balls, and you have to hit as many pins as you can.
It's a team game, eight people per team,
and you compete against another team of eight.
And whoever scores the most pins on each leg, wins a leg.
First to five legs wins…
…is that confusing?
[laughter]
So this is the alley. All starts here on this line. So we bowl from here,
and we go all the way down…
...to the diamond.
What you have to remember is the gaps between the skittles are wide enough for a ball…
…to roll straight through.
If you go back through history, skittles used to be everywhere. Every pub had a skittle alley.
Over time, the way pub culture's changed, the alleys have disappeared.
And the West Country still seems to be a little pocket where skittles is still popular, and thriving I hasten to add.
A few of us, we'd moved to Bath and wanted to embrace all that is Bath, all that is West Country.
So we thought we'll give skittles a go, formed a team: Twerton City Rollers.
Why are we arguably the most famous, least successful skittles team?
Well, we're least successful because we haven't won a single thing, apart from loser's trophies.
But on the other hand we are quite popular. We've got 25 followers on Facebook.
I think that makes us a contender for the most popular skittles team in Bath…
…if not the world.
We're in the Bath Municipal Skittles league.
I think we're maybe bottom at the minute, it all depends.
The results are in the Bath Chronicle every week.
One of our guys gets the Chronicle and uses it to put together the results.
There's always a bit of rivalry to see who gets the highest score, because the highest score always gets a mention in the Chronicle.
There's a certain amount of physical preparation involved
like I walk here most games.
It's a sport, but it's so much more than a sport.
It's a pastime, it's a community focal point, it's a discipline.
It's a way of life.
Just don't call it bowling
[clapping]
That's it, dream over for another week.
Guess there's always next week, who are we playing next week?
Them again.
Them again?
Yeah
I reckon we've a chance.