Quoiting

A popular sport amongst Ayrshire's miners. Pronounced 'kiteing', quoiting greens (green in name only), were found in every village, usually near the pub. Quoits were heavy iron rings, rounded on one side, flat on the other and weighed 8-12 pounds but could be up to 23 pounds. They were hurled at a steel pin driven into a three-foot square clay bed, with the common length of the green being 22 yards. In Ayrshire the top prize was the McIntyre Cup. The 1834 final lasted all of 6 hours throwing quoits that '….would almost be a load for a Glasgow porter!'. Because of its physical nature, alcohol and heavy betting most town councils tried to ban the sport. It declined after the First World War and died out in Ayrshire in the mid-1960s.