Ironworks Gaming Forum - The Bad Mitten Tournament

This started life as a response to another post where some one mentioned a badmitton contest. In light of recent events I thought I'd post this tongue in cheek post as a stand alone post. Hope it makes you grin.

Ancient English sporting event the bad mitten tournanent. Hundreds of women would squeeze into a tiny, dark, smokey pub at some secret location.All would then be locked in, whereupon the grandmothers of said women would be forced to drink copious amounts of strong gin. Once suitably bladdered, the old dears were led to their rocking chairs, usually via the toilet, the bar door and various other locations in the pub. Once all the old girls were in their seats, then they were made to knit mittens with oversize knitting needles. During this snail pace affair, the adult grand daughters (all over 50 as far as they knew) would get totally plasterd themselves. Rules were strict and firmly adhered to. All wrinkly combatants were periodically checked for suitable signs of being incoherent. For every 1000 stitches, the bladdered grannie had to drink another yard of strong grog. Whilst cheating did sometimes occur, usually in the form of needle bending whilst the grannie was suffering myopia, or the more common form of miming words to gran to confuse the poor woman into thinking she was going deaf. It was by and large accepted by the drunken grandaughters, who were more often than not completely stupefied themselves. Granny fighting and granny baiting were often part and parcel of every bad mitten tournament. Granny baiting usually took the forms of such insults as "Oi, yer knittings shit, you deaf'n'blind old moo". Whereupon the offended grannie would usually attack with a series of insults of her own. If the grannie could be baited enough, a grannie fight would ensue....the baiters grannie taking her place as a matter of honour. The bad mitten knitter grannies are a proud race and a good old fashioned slow motion ruck was quite the ordinary for these toothless old girls. No gumshields back then. Sometimes grannie duels were hastily arranged for suitably sighted dearies. A large cork was stuck on the end of a blunted elongated knitting needle, the drunken duellists would drink a half bottle of gin followed swiftly by a yard of heavy bitter, they would be spun around three times and then unleashed upon the pub. The first person to hit anything solid was deemed the winner. The losing grannie was not allowed to knit for five minutes, she was however allowed as much brandy as she considered useful for her revival.

There were certainly known legal methods of getting your grannie to knit a bad mitten quickly whilst suitably sloshed and these methods were often employed near the end of the bad mitten tournament. Perhaps when a grannie looked close to completion of a particularly bad mitten, it was not uncommon for the old birds to be hurried along a bit by the denial of toilet facilities until the old ladies stitch rate had been upped sufficiently. The winner was determined by the last two standing, grannie and adult grandaughter still drinking with a completed really bad mitten (a perfect example being the prize winner of grannie Grumpass (circa 1359) which had four beautifully crafted fingers, stitched seamlessy onto a lovely palm/back bit, no method of putting ones hand into it and promptly fell to pieces when official hangover victim women remembered to check the grannie winners work. Prize money was evenly distributed by the winning partners and consisted of everything they could rifle from the comatose losers. The reputed largest purse ever recorded was 1500 brass groats, four goats, twenty two bottles of brandy, seventy two pairs of old ladies boots, eleven headscarves and one hundred and fourty four pipes with a whole ounce of tobacco. The remembered drinks quota according to the winners was thus :-

Bad Granny Grimcow - 3 bottles of gin, 11 yards of grog, 1 bottle medicinal brandy.

Daughter Verygrimcow - 4 bottles of gin, 12 yards of grog, 2 bottles of medicinal brandy*.
(*These figures were disputed by Bad Granny Grimcow who claimed she'd drank more than her grandaughter, this led to a fracas in which Verygrimcow had her ear clipped and her front two teeth knocked out.)
Another interesting point regarding this contest which took place in 1294 is the fact that Bad Granny Grimcow and grandaughter Verygrimcow stole a cart on which to place their booty but were far too pissed to undo the stable door catch. Subsequently they couldn't release a horse with which to pull the cart, it's unlikely they could have hitched it up anyway according to eyewitness reports. "Aaarrhh, they be well piffed, tham twoe" said one bumpkin. Failing to release the horse and being too drunk to know any better, 109 year old Grimcow and her 70 year old grandaughter attempted to pull the 3 ton cart. Suitably exhausted the geriatric pairing fell into a slumber and were themselves robbed. This led to the Bad Mitten Wars of 1295-1969.**
**(Source - Charlies Shoppe of Shite)

It is widely believed that the bad mitten tournament still continues at various secret locations across across rural England to this day.

Do you know of any unusal tournaments, competitions? £1000,000 to all published articles. Ask mod's for details. http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...es/biggrin.gif

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Aaahh.... Fur Cough.