International Toad-in-the-hole Competition

The 13th international toad-in-the-hole competition, the most prestigious event in the Lewes-based pub game’s calendar, takes place in the Town Hall this week, organised by the Lewes Lions. For anyone who doesn’t know about the game, it involves throwing small brass discs at a foot-high table with a lead top. In the middle of the table is a hole, slightly larger than the discs. You score one point for a disc which remains on the table, and two for one that goes down the hole. Nothing for one that hits the backboard or ends up on the floor. It can be played as a singles game or a doubles: the event this week is the latter.

There are variants of the game in other parts of the country, and even in other countries, but toads as we know it in Lewes is indigenous to the town and its region. Nobody knows how long it has been practiced (anecdotal evidence goes back to the beginning of the last century) but it was becoming increasingly obsolete until the annual competition was set up, followed by a pub league and a ‘European Masters’ event. This week’s event is becoming increasingly popular - next year there are likely to be 64 teams as opposed to this year’s sell-out 48. None of these teams, to Shipway’s knowledge, have registered from outside Sussex. Take it as read that the ‘international’ in the title is meant with more irony that than US baseball’s ‘World Series’. AL