The new Cheltenham Skittles League season is only just getting under way but Brown Jug B have already got a trophy in their cabinet.

The Division Seven side play an annual match against Norwood Arms A – a bit like the Varsity match in rugby – and it’s only the second time they have got their hands on the cup.

The match has been running for a dozen or so years and started when both teams played on the alley at what was the Brown Jug pub in Bath Road, Cheltenham.

“It was quite funny how it all started,” said Roger Thompson, who has been playing for Norwood Arms A since 1983. “The landlady at the time found an old trophy in the basement of the pub and someone in the bar suggested ourselves and Brown Jug B play for it each year.

“The matches are 12-a-side just like a normal league game but they are played over two nights – home and away. It’s great fun but there is a bit of friendly rivalry.”

The alley in what was the Brown Jug pub – it’s now the Sup and Chow – is no longer there, which means these days the Norwood Arms A play their home games at Hillview Community Centre, while Brown Jug B have moved up the road to the Patesians Sports & Social Club.

Norwood Arms A, who are playing in Division Two of the Cheltenham League this season, are one of the oldest teams in the town, having been formed in 1949.

They left the Norwood in the mid-1980s when the pub’s skittles alley was dismantled and have had a somewhat nomadic existence since.

“We first moved to the Sherborne pub, which is no longer there, and then to the Merryfellow, which no longer has skittles,” said Roger.

“Then we had about 10 seasons at the Suffolk before we arrived just across the road from the Norwood at the Brown Jug, and spent the next 15 or so years there until we had to move yet again when it became the Sup and Chow, which is the story of skittles for so many teams.”

So why did they continue to call themselves Norwood Arms A?

“In those days if you changed your name you had to go back to the bottom division in the league,” explained Thompson. “There were something like 17 or 18 divisions back then and we were in division four or five so we didn’t want to do that!”