Provided
by: American
Shuffleboard Co.
Phil-American
Shuffleboard Co. and The Board Talk
Brief Overview
of the History of Table Shuffleboard
Shuffleboard in the
Great Hall at Littlecotes (Wiltshire,
England, 1740)
Back in 15th Century
England, folks played a game of sliding a "great" (a
large British coin of the day worth about four pence) down a
table. The game was called shove-groat and/or slide-groat. Later,
a silver penny was used and the name of the game became
shove-penny and/or shovel-penny. The game was played by the young
and old, and was a favorite pastime in the great country houses of
Staffordshire, Winchester and Wiltshire. While our Founding
Fathers were busy putting together the makings of this great
country, there were big shuffleboard matches being conducted
throughout the colonies.
Shuffleboard was popular
among the English soldiers as well as the colonists. In his
play, "The Crucible," concerning the historic witch
trials of Salem, Mass., Arthur Miller wrote: "In 1692, there
was a good supply of ne'er-do-wells who dallied at the
shuffleboard in Bridget Bishop's Tavern." That item
provides a written record of the entrance of the game into the New
World. The fame of the game spread, and soon it came upon the
public scene in more ways than one.
In 1848, in New Hanover,
Pennsylvania, a case of "The State vs. John Bishop" to
decide the question, "Is shuffle- board a game of chance or a
game of skill?" came up for trail. The judge ruled thus:
"Though the defendant kept a public gaming table, as charged,
and though diverse persons played thereat and bet spirituous
liquors on the game, the game was not a game of chance, but was
altogether a game of skill." The game shed its crude
beginnings when American cabinetmakers such as Hepplewhite and
Duncan Phyfe turned out some of their finest inlaid cabinet work
on shuffleboard game tables for the wealthy homes of New York
City.
By 1897, table shuffleboard
rated as much space in the metropolitan newspapers in the New York
City area as prizefighting and baseball. Highly publicized
tournaments played by such colorful characters as "Big
Ed" Morris, Dave Wiley, Alex Scott, Ed Gardland, and George
Lavender drew hordes of fans. The fans faithfully followed the
players to tournaments in New York City; Newark, Paterson,
Hoboken, Jersey City and Bloomfield, New Jersey, and even into
Philadelphia. The fans included important figures of the business,
theatrical, and political worlds. Shuffleboard made its way across
the country.
In 1904, Gentleman Jim
Corbett, an avid player, had a tavern owner named Croll install a
table in his Alameda, California,' pub. "Doc" Croll, his
son, claimed it was the first shuffleboard in that part of the
country. World War II opened the "Swinging Forties" and
shuffleboard really came into its own. The intrinsic appeal of the
game -- skill, diversity, competitiveness, availability to young
and old, strong and disabled, the serious game, the fun game,
offered the kind of release needed in those turbulent years.
Hollywood climbed on the shuffleboard bandwagon and took it up, at
first, as a source of good publicity. Then when the pin-up girls
and bandleaders and actors discovered they really liked the game,
shuffleboards found their way into the studios and homes of the
stars. People like Betty Grable, Harry James, Merv Griffin, Alan
Ladd, all had their own shuffleboards.
Shuffleboard grew to its
greatest height in the 1950s. Most major shuffleboard
manufacturers sponsored nationwide shuffleboard tournaments. These
were the biggest tournaments ever held; one had 576 teams
participating. Fierce competition among major manufacturers
and suppliers, lack of uniform rules and organization, the
inability to gain sponsorship of the sport, and general internal
strife in all facets of shuffleboard, led to a demise of the game
in the '60s and '70s. Some feared it was damaged beyond
"repair," but others invested their time, efforts and
talents to breath life into the sport that they loved. That
dedication paid off; by the mid-'80s, shuffleboard experienced a
revival, a revival that has extended and strengthened in the '90s.
While organization, cooperation and communication have been key
elements in the revival of shuffleboard, probably the most
important factor has been an almost universal realization in The
World of Shuffleboard that new young shooters will he the
continued lifeline of the sport. Across the nation, established
shooters have made it their top priority to help novice players
develop their talents and nurture their enthusiasm for league and
tournament play.
National Table
Shuffleboard Hall of Fame
As long as that remains
a priority, shuffleboard will continue to grow. One major
accomplishment in this decade is the establishment of a National
Shuffleboard Hall of Fame in 1995. This achievement was due in
large part to the efforts of six volunteers who originally served
on the NSHOF's Board of Directors: Glen Davidson, Oklahoma,
president; Hal Perry, California, vice president; Louise Freer,
Pennsylvania, secretary; Bob Hunt, California, treasurer and chief
financial officer; Larry Creakbaum, Indiana, director; and Jim
Foran, Washington, director. Helping them realize this
long-sought dream have been individual shufflers, associations,
and fans who have made financial and/or memorabilia
contributions. The NSHOF was renamed to TSA HOF (Table
Shuffleboard - Hall of Fame) in 2000, due to deck shuffleboard
already having a National Shuffleboard Hall of Fame organization
and HOF museum which pre-dated the establishment of the
NSHOF. To view the most current list of TSA Directors and
TSA Hall of Fame Inductee list, go to the TSA website: http://www.tableshuffleboard.org
.
The TSA organization is
collecting as much history as possible to display in the TSA
museum located in Richland Hills, Texas in an effort to preserve
and display as much table shuffleboard history as possible so
that so that generations to follow will have a knowledge of
and appreciation for that history.
--Information provided
by the American Shuffleboard Company, the Phil-American
Shuffleboard Company, and The Board Talk.
