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Aunt Sally is a traditional English game usually played in pub gardens and fairgrounds that dates back to the 17th Century in which players throw sticks or battens at a model of an old woman's head. Leagues of pub teams, each consisting of eight players, still play the game today, throughout the spring and summer months, mainly in Oxfordshire and some bordering counties.
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Origin of the term
It has been suggested that the term was based on a blackface doll itself inspired by a low-life character named "Black Sal", which appeared in an 1821 series of novellas entitled Life of London by Pierce Egan, a contemporary of Charles Dickens.
History
The game was traditionally played in central English pubs and fairgrounds. An Aunt Sally was originally the modelled head of an old woman with a clay pipe in her mouth, or later a ball on a stick.
There are also other theories of how the game started; one such theory is that a live cockerel was placed on the stick, and people would throw sticks at it. Whoever killed it won the game and took home the chicken. Another theory is that in Port Meadow in Oxfordshire, at the time of the English Civil War, the Cavaliers (soldiers loyal to King Charles I) were bored and formed a game with sticks and makeshift materials similar to the game as understood today. The object was for players to throw sticks at the head in order to break the pipe. The game bears some resemblance to a coconut shy or skittles.
Today, the game of Aunt Sally is still played as a pub game in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.
In 2011 the inaugural Aunt Sally Singles World Championship took place at the Charlbury Beer Festival in Charlbury, West Oxfordshire which was attended by former prime minister David Cameron and the tournament has continued there annually ever since.
Rules
The ball is on a short plinth about 100 to 150 mm high x 75mm diameter, known as the "dolly", which is placed on a dog-legged metal spike about a 750mm to 1000mm high. Players throw sticks or short battens (450 x 50mm) at the dolly, trying to knock it off without hitting the spike. Successfully hitting the dolly off is known as a "doll"; however if the spike is hit first, then the score does not count and is called an "iron".