Hastings International Spronkers Event

A Cabbage is not a Sprout!

Keith Leech writes: Boxing Day revelry started with about 25 morris dancers plus supporters huddled in Old Town pubs to avoid the driving rain. Eventually they ventured onto Winkle Island to a very small waiting audience. As the men bravely took off their overcoats to dance, a welcome invitation came from the Fishermen’s Institute to dance in the dry, so an hour long show proceeded, with seasonal dances followed by the Hollington mummers play.

Meanwhile people dressed as foxes were gathering in The Crown and others dressed as Hunters, with hobby horses and hunting horns gathered in The Dolphin. Eventually the foxes shot off around the Old Town at a great rate while the hunters strolled from The Dolphin, horns blowing, their task to scour the pubs for any foxes and more importantly fox tails that had been hidden in the hostelries.

An hour later foxes and hunters were in The Stag where they joined the morris dancers for the first international game of Spronkers. Spronkers has the same rules as conkers, but is played using brussel sprouts.

There were two leagues, under and over sixteen and sufficient entrants for the event to keep a happy crowd enthralled for three hours while live folk music was played in the other bar.

Things became tense towards the final and Bill Wickens of Old Town Carnival was disqualified for attempting to bring on a small cabbage claiming it was a sprout. Eventually the winners were: in the under 16 category Cailin McDuffie and over 16 ‘Undead Mike’ from the Morris dancers. £117 wa raised for the Bonfire Society. Thus another Old Town tradition is born.

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