Dwile Flonking - History

History

The earliest definitely known game of Dwile Flonking was played at the Beccles Festival of Sport in 1966. According to BBC research, 'No one can remember the score, although team members recalled feeling "pretty fragile" the following morning.' There is a reference to the sport which predates the Beccles Festival - originating in the fertile imagination of Michael Bentine, who had a show called "It's a Square World", on the BBC. A skit in one episode had explorers stumble across a group of natives in the darkest reaches of the English countryside playing the sport. The episode aired sometime between 1960 and 1964 when the show was originally broadcast.

The organisers of the Beccles festival event were Andrew Leverett and Robert Devereux, printing apprentices at Clay's of Bungay and Clowes of Beccles, respectively, who had apparently been shown the rules on the only decipherable portion of a parchment document entitled: 'Ye Olde Booke of Suffolk Harvest Rituels', which George High of Bungay claimed to have found the same year while clearing out his late grandfather's attic. The inaugural teams were formed by employees of Clay's and Clowes.

Some suspicion was cast on the game in 1967 when the Eastern Daily Press ran an article which stated that the county archivist had failed to find any mention of the game amongst the county records. Dwile flonking featured as a key element in legal hearings later that year assessing an application for a licence extension to cater for the dinner dance of the Waveney Valley Dwile Flonking Association. The Waveney Valley Dwile Flonking Association went on to make their television debut on The Eamonn Andrews television programme in 1967, which resulted in letters from Australia, Hong Kong and America asking for a flonking rule book, although in the Australians' case this may have been a misprint.

Schott's apparently retcons the game citing historical evidence in a 16th century painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder: Children's games.