Three Cambridge University alumni who set up the tiddlywinks society so that they could represent the university at sport are celebrating its 70th anniversary.
Bill Steen, 91, co-founded the Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club (CUTwC) alongside long-time friend Lawford Howells, 90, at Christ’s College in January 1955 with their friend Peter Downes, 86, joining later.
The group thought up the idea after realising it was their only chance at obtaining a prestigious blue – the highest honour that can be received by a Cambridge sportsperson. Often, the honour is earned by representing Cambridge in a Varsity match or against Oxford in a particular sport, such as football, rugby or rowing.
Mr Steen said the group were “hopeless as athletes” and so focussed their attention instead on tiddlywinks – a game where players take turns trying to get small plastic discs into a cup by pressing one piece against another.
Mr Steen said: “We were hopeless as athletes, and we were discussing our dismal chances of obtaining a blue, due to our lack of talent. We decided our best chance was to invent our own sport – and preferably write the rules too.”
Once the society was established, they created new terminology, designed club ties, wrote a thesis on The Science of Tiddlywink, and later oversaw the creation of the Tiddlywinks Anthem.
Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club in 1958
(Image: PA)
“In those days, the sportsmen were kings, the real stars at university, and it was so competitive,” said Mr Downes.
The first Varsity tiddlywinks match took place in 1958, when the Cambridge team received a “quarter blue” for their victory over their Oxford rivals.
“In the tradition at Cambridge you can get a full blue if you play the proper games like rugger and football, things like that. You get a half blue if you’re doing it for netball or something like this, there’s a sort of ranking of games, so we got a quarter blue for tiddlywinks – I think it’s the only quarter blue going,” Mr Steen explained.
In a major publicity push, the young students wrote to celebrities, royalty and national newspapers to seek matches. The club finally got introduced to the world once a challenge was accepted by the Daily Mirror newspaper and a match was played in the Cock Tavern in Fleet Street in June 1955.
Just two years later, unrelated to the club’s activities, The Spectator released an article titled “Does Prince Philip cheat at tiddlywinks?” Following this, the club challenged the Duke of Edinburgh to a match.
Philip appointed The Goons, a group of comedy stars including Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to represent him in a match against CUTwC in 1958. Mr Downes later received a left-handed leather gauntlet via post from the comedy troupe, and a note accepting the challenge which Mr Howells recalled as reading, “To your sword do take upon, the day be fixed” and signed by “Sire Spike the Milligan”.
It soon became a national news story covered by much of the UK media, with Mr Steen describing the event as “like living a fairytale story”. The Royal Tournament, held at The Guildhall in Cambridge, sold out 600 tickets in two hours, and the game ended with a win for Cambridge.
Mr Howells, who went on to work in international engineering consulting and business development, said The Goons were “the top comedians at the time”.
Bill Steen with Peter Downes, playing tiddlywinks with current Cambridge University staff and students
(Image: PA)
“We’d been trying to play them for what seemed to be years – they really appealed to our sense of humour,” he added.
The tiddlywinks trio returned to Cambridge this month for the 70th anniversary of the club. Mr Steen described the club’s longevity as “absolutely amazing”, adding that “over 2,000 students have played tiddlywinks” since the club began in 1955.
Mr Downes, who studied modern languages and later translated the tiddlywinks rules into French before working as a teacher and education finance consultant, said: “I got a 2:1, and I sometimes wonder if I might have got a first had we not got carried away with all the attention.”
The current CUTwC president, Emmy Charalambous, said: “We’ve all heard the incredible story, but it was great to see them and hear it from them – how they took a Victorian parlour game and turned it into a competitive sport.
“We still sing the anthem, and it’s a fun way to represent your university, but part of the joke is how seriously it actually gets taken. There are people who have been playing for decades, who show up at tournaments, who still love and breathe tiddling.”