Playing their own game

Three friends who turned tiddlywinks into a competitive sport so they could represent Cambridge as students were back at the University to mark the game's 70^th anniversary.

Bill Steen, 91, and Lawford Howells, 90, co-founded the Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club (CUTwC) with others at Christ’s College in January 1955, with Peter Downes, 86, joining later. It was the start of an extraordinary story – involving the royal family and stars from one of the UK’s most influential comedy groups of all time – that made national headlines and led to tiddlywinks becoming an internationally recognised competitive game.

Reflecting on it seven decades later, Bill – who has been described as ‘the WG Grace of tiddlywinks’ – joked: “It practically cost us our degrees!”

The plan was hatched just before Christmas 1954, when Bill met up with Rikki Martin, an old friend from the RAF, who was also studying at Cambridge.

“We were hopeless as athletes, and we were discussing our dismal chances of obtaining a blue – the award earned by Cambridge athletes competing at the highest level – against Oxford, due to our lack of talent,” said Bill. “We decided our best chance was to invent our own sport – and preferably write the rules too!”

Peter said: “In those days, the sportsmen were kings, the real stars at university, and it was so competitive. So I think part of the idea behind it was to send this up – the idea of sportsmen being big and strong and beefy.”

Joined by more friends, they tried to find out if tiddlywinks was already established as a competitive game elsewhere, researching its history, how it was played, and whether any organisation oversaw it. They searched the British Library and Cambridge University Library for clues, and even wrote to games manufacturers asking for help.

“Most were helpful, but could not offer much more,” said Bill, who studied chemical engineering at Christ’s College, and later became an academic engineer and Honorary Fellow at Christ’s. “So, armed with this sparse information and a great deal of pent up energy, we held a meeting and approached the University for official recognition of the club – I later learned that our request made that particular meeting very jovial!”

Officially registered with the University, the Club set about establishing the competitive rules, which introduced a new element of strategy to the game – including the ‘squopping’ rule, which stops a tiddlywink from being moved if an opponent can cover it with their own ‘wink’ – and organising their first matches. They challenged other universities, nearby airbases, newspapers, and even the House of Commons, but those that did reply were not very enthusiastic. They wrote a thesis, ‘The Science of Tiddlywinks’, coined new terminology, designed Club ties, and later oversaw the creation of the ‘Tiddlywinks Anthem’, which is still sung at matches around the world to this day.

Eventually a challenge was accepted by the Daily Mirror newspaper, and a match was played in the Cock Tavern in Fleet Street on 18^th June 1955, when the Club was introduced to the world.

Then, in 1957, an article – unrelated to the game itself – appeared in The Spectator with the teasing headline "Does Prince Philip cheat at tiddlywinks?", and spotting a good publicity opportunity, the Club challenged Prince Philip – later to become Chancellor of the University in 1976 – to a tiddlywinks match to ‘defend his honour’. The Duke of Edinburgh appointed The Goons, the hugely popular comedy group starring Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe, as his Royal champions.

Lawford, who also studied chemical engineering at Christ’s, and later worked in international engineering consulting and business development, said: “They were the top comedians at the time, and we’d been trying to play them for what seemed to be years – they really appealed to our sense of humour. The next thing was Peter got a left-handed leather gauntlet through the post, and a note accepting the challenge which read ‘To your sword do take upon, the day to be fixed’, and signed by ‘Sir Spike the Milligan’.”

Excitement around the contest grew, and it soon became a national news story covered by much of the UK media.

#OTD 1958: Prince Phillip was challenged to a Tiddlywinks game by Cambridge University. He immediately dispatched his Royal Champions, The Goons, to defend his honour.

“It was like living a fairytale story,” said Bill. “We had huge fan mail, including from Prince Philip and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary. The match was reported in just about every newspaper. It was also reported during news bulletins on BBC television, and on Pathe and Gaumont News in the cinemas.”

The Royal Tournament was held at The Guildhall, Cambridge, on 1st March 1958, where crowds gathered to get a glimpse of the spectacle. The 600 tickets had sold out in two hours. The game ended with a win for Cambridge by 120 1/2 points to 55 1/2, 16 games to nil.

Following the buzz of the Royal Tournament, the first Varsity tiddlywinks match took place later the same year, when the Cambridge team received a ‘quarter blue’ and beat their Oxford rivals. The English Tiddlywinks Association was also founded in 1958. The game continued to flourish, with clubs springing up around the world, and the first British Universities Championship taking place in 1961, when the Duke of Edinburgh presented the trophy he had gifted, the Silver Wink, which universities still compete for today.

Lawford said: “We could never have imagined it would take off the way it did – it’s incredible! The real spark was the Royal Tournament, that put us on the map.”

Peter, who studied modern languages at Christ’s – and translated the tiddlywinks rules into French – before working as a teacher and education finance consultant, added: “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!”

Emmy Charalambous, 21, who is studying Classics at Trinity College, and is the current CUTwC President, 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 the tournaments, who still live and breathe tiddling.”

Bill said: “The real joke is that we started this for the fun and to try and get a blue at Cambridge – and it turns out to be a really nice game. And if you happen to have the right quality of mat or blanket you can start ‘squidging’ winks into a pot. You'd be surprised how it just fills your mind.”

Published: 13th January 2025
Words: Stephen Bevan
2025 images: Nick Saffell

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