Quoits - The Long Game

The Long Game or The Old Game can still be found in Wales and Scotland. It seems to be most venerable of the Quoits games and the heaviness of the quoits, sheer distance and difficulty in seeing the pin make it both challenging to play and dramatic to watch. The Welsh version is given here. The Scottish game used to played at a range of 21 yards but these days is identical to the Welsh version bar a few minor differences - for instance the Welsh measure the distance to a quoit from the centre of the pin whereas the Scottish measure from the edge of the pin

Description

The pitch is 18 yards long with 3 feet square clay quoiting beds enclosed in a wooden frame. The clay descends 8" but the wooden frame is 2 inches wide and its depth is only 3 inches. The consistency of the clay is very important because a well thrown quoit should embed itself in the clay at an angle - the precise angle and orientation is often tactically crucial. Either side of the beds are "running boards" from which the players throw the quoits. These days they are often made from concrete. A player must throw from behind a line level with the pin marked on the boards.

The centrally placed pin is 1 inch in diameter and 18 inches long but the top is flush with the clay. So the objective is not to try to ring the pin so much as to get as near to it as possible - it acts simply as a target more akin to bowls. The result of this is that the ideal shot is generally taken to be one that ends with the underside of the quoit touching the top of the pin. Such a quoit makes it very difficult for the opponent to land near to the target whereas a genuine ringer that circles the pin is beatable.

The quoits are normally made of steel and should be no bigger than 8.63 inches and with a hole no less than 3.4" with no limit on the height or weight. A typical quoit will be 7 - 8" in diameter, have a hole diameter of 4.5 inches and weigh anything between 6 and 11 pounds.

To assist the players, two helpers can be allocated to them. Firstly a "cleaner" can be tasked with cleaning the clay from quoits after each end. Cleaners are rarely employed these days - players tend to clean their own quoits. More vitally, each player has a helper called a "lighter". The lighter places a small piece of white paper within the bed before each throw for the player to aim at. Often this is on the pin itself, it being almost invisible in the clay at 18 yards but sometimes, the lighter will place the paper elsewhere within the bed according to the tactics of the throw. For instance, sometimes the objective might be to flip an opponent's quoit out of play. The lighter also provides the player with measurements, a description of the current state of play and tactical advice.

Play

The rules of play are very simple. A single game is played by two people and each person throws two quoits alternately each turn. The players then walk to the other hob and standing alongside it throw the quoits at the opposite hob. The player with the quoit nearest to the pin wins the end and scores two points if both quoits from that player are nearest to the pin or otherwise just one point. The game is won by the first player to reach 21 points.

In the annual international match played between Scotland and Wales, two teams of 12 players compete in seeded order. So each player plays once against the person ranked the same in the opposing team. The final result is made up of the aggregate scores of the teams.