Lords of the rings ready to do battle once again

As Britain warms, dozens of dale folk dust off their quoits. Reporter Alex Metcalfe spoke to one of the best in the business to find out more 

 QUOITS is not just chucking rings. Strategy, positioning and decision-making under pressure go into making a half decent player.
A little bit of luck doesn’t go amiss either. 
Third generation farmer Trevor Cooper knows this only too well.
The 58-year-old, from Bowes, has the title of National Quoits Championship to his name and is chairman of the Zetland Quoits League.
The league will kick off, as it has done for decades, on Monday, May 1.
But Mr Cooper tells me the game has suffered a slow decline – with the number of teams enrolled half what it once was.
He says: “We have got 17 teams in the league at the moment – it has ticked down over the years. There was 33 teams when I joined 30 years ago.
“But it’s basically related to pubs and as pubs close, or people age, the younger generation don't take it up as much.
“It would be nice if people would get involved – most teams could do with another player or two.
“I would be only too willing to show people how to play.”
Some have a working knowledge of quoits from driving past a game on a Monday night, others among us see a quoits pitch and scratch our heads.
Our version, a variation on the edition known broadly as “the Northern Game”, pits two teams of seven against one another on a pitch 11 yards long with a three square feet “business end” made of clay.
Two opponents go up against one another, metal rings are tossed at pins and the first to 21 wins.
However, there’s a little more to it than that.
Mr Cooper explains: “The object is to get these metal quoits rings on the pin or blocking the pin.
“Blocking it is better because it stops your opponent getting to that pin. You get one point for the nearest to the pin, two points for on the pin – as long as someone does not put one on top.
“Four points for one on top of the other.”
Mr Cooper made his first foray into the game after trying it out at Eggleston and Bowes shows.
Making the hop from grass to clay, he practised for a good few years on his own pitch before taking on the Zetland League.
“It takes a good few years to play it well unless you have a knack for it,” he adds. 
“You have to go to a decent competition to see how to play it right because there are probably ten different ways to throw a quoit.”
There is no “set order” to throwing your quoits.
But, like chess, one false move can lead to a slow, painful and often heavy loss – and woe betide any pretender who casts the wrong quoit.
Mr Cooper says: “You look sometimes and see when someone doesn’t throw the right quoit. You can get told you’ve lost the game because of it.
“Sometimes you’ve got to follow suit – if they throw a hill quoit, you throw a hill quoit to top it on the pin.
“If you are up against the best opponents, you can be blocked out of their pot – so against a good player you can get ducked.”
Quoits is no stranger to a bit of terminology.
Face gaters, Frenchmen and varieties of “toucher” can baffle the uninitiated and couple that with the fact that the names of each of these moves or bits of kit may be completely different in the next valley along.
What unites the sport is the recognition of who are the best.
The cream of the quoits crop from nine leagues across the North test their mettle in two big competitions every year.
Mr Cooper says: “The Wilkinson Sword would be held at Darlington Quoits Club in June – that’s one of the big ones which takes 64 entries.
“You get the pick of them there – Richard Watson, Paul Dixon and Ian Carr are the men to beat on the circuit.”
He adds: “The other competition is at Beamish – the National Quoits Association Championships.
“I have won it and David Wilson who used to play has won it.
“We’ve held our own there and got a run out of it.
“Quite honestly in 30 years, the ones that were at the top then are still there so we could do with some competition.”
And that’s the rub.
Like so many games closely tied to rural pubs and clubs, their decline has mirrored that of their host and participation has ebbed away.
But there are signs of hope in Teesdale.
Pleas for a team in Cockfield have been answered for another year at least and Middleton Club is looking to get a side together. 
Mr Cooper admits standards have dropped off in the past 20 years and says there’s still room for people to have a go.
“Bowes has still got two teams which is good for a little club,” he adds.
“If anyone is interested they could still put a team in without being connected to a pub – 16 and 17-year-olds can play as well as older people – as they practice they can soon pick it up.”
The first round of Zetland Quoits League fixtures begin in the A Division on Monday, May 1 while the B Division kicks off on May 8.
Results and tables will appear in the Mercury this season.
For more information go to the Zetland Quoits League Facebook page.