00:00I'm Neil Squires. We're at the Leeds Petant Club and I am the author of The Fall and Rise of
00:10the
00:10Mulkey Bar Kids. We had a group of school friends in Leeds, possibly past our sporting prime, just
00:16dipping into our 50s. We'd always dreamt of representing our nation at something, sports-wise.
00:22We'd look long and hard to try and find something. Then I got a message through from Australia,
00:27from my son, Louis, who's backpacking out there, with a very short video with this strange looking
00:33game on it. And that game was called Mulkey and it's set in a series of events which ended up
00:41with
00:41us in Japan representing Great Britain at the World Championships. The aim of the game is to reach 50
00:46points. The skittles are all numbered from 1 to 12. You knock them over with a wooden rolling pin called
00:53the tikku. If you knock one skittle over, you get the number of points on the skittle. If you knock
00:59more than one over, you get the number of skittles you knock down. So the aim of the game is
01:04to get
01:05there. If you go too far though and bust, you drop back down to 25. So there's a bit of
01:10a snakes and
01:11ladders element to it. If you miss three times, you're out. So you've got to keep hitting them.
01:16We found it was quite addictive. There's a bit of strategy to it. There's a bit of skill, a bit
01:21of
01:21nerve required for your outshot. A bit like darts. You've got to get that outshot right.
01:25And also there was no athletic requirement whatsoever, which was totally perfect for us
01:30in our 50s. So we really got the bug for it. The problem was finding anyone else who played it
01:37in
01:37Great Britain. We trudged down from Leeds to Cambridge to dip our toe in the water to see whether we
01:43were
01:44up to this game. And yeah, I beat an eight-year-old girl 2-1. So things were looking good.
01:50We did suffer
01:51some very, very heavy defeats though against the best of Europe. So there were some problems
01:55there. We realised we were going to have to put some work in if we were going to get any
01:59better
01:59at this thing. But we'd seen this world championship in Japan, the first time it'd ever been held in
02:05Asia. But we went there really as total outsiders. It was like a cool runnings with splinters job.
02:10You know, we were very much the outsiders in this World Cup of Malky against the greats of the game.
02:17You know, not a lot was expected of us, particularly from us. But, you know, when you're representing,
02:23you rise, don't you? And once we put these Great Britain tops on, we grew another leg. And
02:28let's just say it was an up and down ride. You know, we couldn't expect to win it, but we
02:33had
02:33our moments out there. Going to Japan, which is an incredibly welcoming place, very interesting culture.
02:40Just, you know, the four of us together for that time, you know, it was a special time together.
02:44And I think the friendship we already had was deepened by going there. And I think if,
02:49you know, if I had any advice, I'd say if anything a bit odd comes up and you reach that
02:55crossroads,
02:57maybe have a go at it. I don't think you'll regret it.
