Chris- Hampshire
Used to go out with my dad in the mid 70's when he was in a Round Table team. As a 6 year old it was great fun and i remember having a go. The scarey thing is that they nearly all drove home afterwards. How things have changed.

Steve, Rawtenstall
We - Fat Bill, Des, Cropper, The Umrod Chaz and Ogger flonked our dwiles in the Regency Club Waterfoot. The Dwile was a sponge soaked in stale beer. If only we could remeber what we did but we had too much Milk of Amnesia at the time.

Anni VoH now NZ originally Berkshire
My vague memories, dating back to the 60's, involve the cloth being a substitute for a small animal, which was said to be released into a crowd of drunken rurals, ALL armed with a stick. The object being to lift the animal/cloth of the ground and fling it about with the sticks. Presumably the game ends when either the animal escapes or the entire team is unconscious. Cruelty to animals and extreme danger to participants may have prompted a tamer version. Then again, all history is naught but lies and half truths, and none more so than this. But that's what I remember. That and a lot of morris dancing.

Adrian, Louth, Lincolnshire
We used to Dwile Flonk at The Cabinet, Reed, Royston, Herts in the late 60's. The memory of the bad heads lives on ! ! !

David Germany
I was employed at Cathodeon Crystals in Linton Camridge, and also secretary of the sport and social club in the seventies.There we celebrated the summer with a "Dwiel Flonking" Contest. As far as I know it is an old East Anglian harvest tradition.

Jim, Eganville, Ontario, Canada
Flonking (or "Flunking") the dwile is a sport originating in the fertile, if wierd, imagination of Michael Bentine. The first reference to the sport was an expedition into the darkest reaches of the English countryside where the "It's a Square World" explorers came across a group of natives playing the sport. The episode aired sometime between 1960 and 1964 when the show was originally broadcast. Historical (or was that "hysterical") mystery solved. QED.

Grabber, now in the Potteries
I was with George High, Bob Devereux, and Andy Leverett at the commencement, all at the Swan in Gelderston.

Anji , Stockport
I remember Dwile Flonking at Salford University (1972-1976). I don't think we really knew what we were doing...but it WAS fun!

Mark, Lowestoft, Cambs, etc...
Tis about time this had a reinvention in the Fens again, I do remember a local beer named 'ripper' which may have very well been a homage to the ancient blessed sport and its scoring systems...

Buzzy ..Halesworth...Member of the Blyth Valley W
The accusations, by Westhall Racehorse of the POT being stolen from their premises is a blatent lie.It has never left our team since the sixties.An apology would not go amiss.

e.g. Tom, Ipswich
Tom in Sheffield - which Tom are you?Au revoir,Rob

Alan, Nottingham
To answer some of the questions raised, a direct face hit is a "Wonton" (3 points), an upper body hit is a "Morther (2 points), and a hit between knee and waist is a "Ripper" (1 point).Each flonker has 2 goes at a time, but 2 "Swadgers" (misses - e.g. non-scoring shots) constitute a foul, and they have to "Take the Pot", whereby they have to drink a quantity of beer from the chamberpot, while the other team sing a chorus of the Dwile Flonkers Lament!I have the rules, diagrams, scoring system etc all documented in a Word doc if anybody wants one?Just email me at alanplayford@ntlworld.com

Buzzy ..Halesworth...Member of the Blyth Valley W
All will soon be revealed to J.M.P of Halesworth as to the TRUE story of flonking in East Anglia.Also photos of the original Silver Championship Trophy donated by Adnam's Brewery

J.M.P Halesworth
I first came across this sport in the mid 70's when i was at Barsham Fair and have a couple of pictures in a book by Richard Barns called the Sun in the East. It now turnes out that I drink with a lot of the origenal founding members of the art. I have decided to record for posterity all of there fantastic stories on tape and collate all of the hundreds of photographs that they have. I am also about to be taken to see and photograph the famouse silver chamber pot that is still to this day in the posesion of the local team captain and indeed ingraved as such. I am chasing some moving footage of the sport taken in the 70's which will be a bonous to the archive which I think I am about to unwittingley start.

Geoff Jones, Buckinghamshire
A newspaper article inspired the introduction of dwile flonking as an event in the Durham University charity Rag Week in 1967, repeated in 1968. I was the initiator and organizer of this as an undergraduate at Van Mildert College and a competition was arranged with several of the other university colleges. The games were held on the Palace Green, between the Norman cathedral and the Norman castle, the site imbuing the event with an air of tradition and gravitas by association. Whether the event continued for any further Rag Weeks after my graduation I have no idea.

Dog Woman, MOld
Now the autumn / winter season is upon us and our rhubarb has been thrashed, we've girtled and swadged our way all summer long, does anyone have any ideas as to how we can transfer the ancient art into an indoor venue, to keep us amused through the long, cold dark nights? The floor of the village hall is carpeted and the caretaker wouldn't be too impressed at beer-sodden flonker soaking into the Axminster?

Alan, Sproughton
I first came across dwile flonking in the summer of 1966 in the village of Pulloxhill in Bedfordshire. This was a recently revived, annual inter-village event, but I never learned how many years it had been running.

Tom, Sheffield
Hopefully playing tonight. Rob Devereux was my French teacher at the Leman school a few years ago!

Dog woman, Mold
Quite by chance the subject of Dwile flonking was brought up on the chat forum of the Welsh Terrier Owners' Society www.weltos.co.uk This has led to a great many postings and reminiscences from members of WelTOS (all totally barmy Welsh Terrier owners) during the past few days. worth checking out for true exponents of the ancient art.

Oliver Australia
Ahh the memory of a summer afternoon game of Dwile Flonking lingers with me to this day and reminds me of how much I miss England so much. I became quite an expert in the art of flonking although I can't remember much at all! I do however remember that the pub halfway up Tuddenham road in Ipswich would put on a game once a year and it was a day not to be missed. This just go's to prove that "only mad dogs and englishmen dwile flonk in the English sun

e.g. Tom, Ipswich
Ray, London During the early 1970's I worked in the Horning Ferry Inn in Norfolk and a local brewery sponsored a dwile flonking tournament amongst the local pubs. The rules were more or less as described in the article above but each flonker had 3 attempts at flonking the dwile.If the flonker hit the head of someone in the counter-rotating circle it was known as a 'mawther' and scored 3 points, if they scored a hit on the body it scored 2 and was known as a 'wanton'. For striking below the waist the flonker scored one point for a 'ripper'!It was great fun and we all got absolutely legless. One of my abiding memories is of one team member throwing a bucket of river water(and in the Broadland competitions there was usually some water flying around sooner or later)all over a suited up representative of the Brewery and the latter trying,in the interests of his company,to restrain himself from throttling the offending, giggling merry maker who had probably just ruined the man's best suit!

e.g. Tom, Ipswich
Hi my son has just E'd me this site from his hovel in Cambribge along with an apology for doubting my tales of my flonking exploits whilst at Lowestoft I remember may ah happissed hours playing at Waveny and Oulton Broad yacht Club some how it always seemed to be a better game if played near to a river or pond!!Lowestoft tech used to put up a team as well in the mid 60's most of us where called after ship parts was I stern or anchor after two chamber pot of red barrell who cared....Now here we em be lads now here we en be ..Wi our dwiles and our dwidlers dwile flonkers be ole tom scores a ripper now hear the crowd shout as we start a hulling our dwiles about " dwiles away"

steve
can you tell me if you score 3 points for a direct face hit??