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Dwyle Flonking at Shillingstone

‘Tis not well-known, but one year in the 1970s Shillingstone had the privilege of hosting the County’s Dwyle Flonking Championships. Equally little-known are the rules of the game.

Two teams of twelve players are formed who dress up as yokels. To play they use a ‘dwyler’ (knitted cloth), a ‘dribbler’ (stick used to hurl the cloth) and two chamber pots, known as ‘guzunders’. The latter are filled with beer. Turns are determined by tossing a sugar beet. One team gathers in a circle and moves around an opposing player known as the ‘flonker’. This competitor dunks the cloth into one of the pots and then throws it at the opposing circling  players.  Points are awarded according to which area of the body the thrower hits with three points awarded for hitting a head.  However, if the player misses, called a ‘swadge’, the thrower has to drink as a forfeit the contents of the other chamber pot within a strict time limit. Alternatively, the player can dump the contents of the guzulder over their head. Dorchester brewer Eldridge Pope supplied 36 gallons of Dorchester brewed beer for the event. The organiser, a local teacher, said that none of the participants would be allowed to drive themselves home.

Players regularly sang folk songs in the local accent while shuffling along or ‘girting’ around in a circle while holding hands. There is a referee who is known as the ‘jobanowl’ and is preferably appointed because the individual is not reckoned to be very bright. The referee can instruct any player to take a drink if it is judged the individual is not taking the game seriously enough. 

Some reckon Dwyle (or Dwile) Flonking dates back centuries while others claim it’s just a piece of nonsense dreamt up in the 1960s. By 2010, there was a fear that Dwyle Flonking was encouraging binge drinking. So, in Norfolk a publican offered squash as a non-alcoholic substitute. Later the participant could consume the equivalent quantity of beer at a more leisurely pace.

More recently, matches have taken place in Dorset at Langton Matravers and Corscombe. Sky Sports have so far failed to show an interest in Dwyle Flonking despite an unsuccessful attempt in 1968 to get it accepted as an Olympic sport.

(Sources: Western Daily Press - 9th June 1972 and The Dorset Village Book (1984) by Harry & Hugh Ashley.).)
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