The Fall and Rise of the Mölkky Bar Kids: 'We represented Team GB in the world championships of a game we'd never heard of'

Their unlikely but true tale has now been captured in a book by one of the four that lived the adventure, a story of unusual sporting glory, but also of male friendship, growing older and what happens when you allow yourself to get carried away and dream big.

“I hope that it might make people think what if?,” reflects writer Neil Squires. “’What if we opened our minds to a question or an opportunity to try and do something different and enjoyable?’ It's certainly something that we don’t regret.”

Neil, formerly a chief sports writer at the Daily Express, was intrigued when he first saw a game of Mölkky in action. ‘You might want to take a look at this’, pinged his phone in December 2023 - a message from his son, who was travelling in Australia at the time.

The accompanying video was grainy, but Neil could make out Louis and his friends throwing what looked like a rolling pin at a collection of numbered wooden skittles.

It wasn’t a sport familiar to Neil, who has covered World Cups in football, cricket and both codes of rugby, as well as the Olympics, golf Majors and tennis Grand Slams during his career. But seeing it took him back to an idle conversation he’d had in the pub with friends a few years earlier.

When they were all approaching their 50th birthdays, the group, who had grown up together in Ripon, North Yorkshire, came up with an idea for a challenge to play 50 different sports to mark the milestone.

That led on to chatter about a shared lifelong dream to become international sportsmen. But could they still do it at their age? What would they compete in?

“We worked out that it would have to be something not too athletic, a bit vague so that not too many people played it particularly in our country, and something that suited our skillset a bit,” reflects Neil, now 58. Back then, they drew a blank – but the idea never really went away.

Mölkky, it turns out, was what they’d been looking for, a game that would give the group a sporting adventure akin to the ones Neil had spent his life reporting on.

Of course, they weren’t to know it would quite pan out that way when they first tried out the game with a makeshift Mölkky set they’d created out of kindling.

"It was too windy to play, so it was a bit of a fiasco,” chuckles Neil. “We had to take it indoors but there was enough there for us to realise this isn't just a kids’ skittle game. There's a bit of strategy, a bit of precision, a bit of nerve to win it at the end.”

His children bought him a proper set for Christmas and soon Neil and his friends were entering their first competition in Cambridge.

They were hooked, setting their sights next on the Mölkky world championship, which that year, 2024, was taking place in Japan.

"There was a countdown period where we were checking to see whether any other British teams were entering week after week until the deadline came around,” recalls Neil, who lives in Calverley, between Bradford and Leeds.

“It transpired that we were going to be the only team there from Britain. Therefore we became Great Britain with the blessing of the GB Mölkky Federation. We flew the flag for the nation.”

After eight months absorbed in the game, and somewhat of an audition process to find a fourth member of the team to compete with them abroad, the men – Neil, along with Graham Greensit, Martin Blacoe and Bill Hamilton - found themselves 5,500 miles from home in Hokkaido.

Their competitive fire was burning; they’d travelled a long way in pursuit of a gold medal and they didn’t want to let their country down.

“We were out there against the best the world had to offer,” says Neil. “It was an up and down ride.”

The Japanese media was rather taken by their story. “We were quite old to be competing in this thing and I think that was part of the novelty,” says Neil. “When we got there, we were pounced on by a news crew from their national TV and they wanted to know all about us.

"They also wanted us to introduce their weatherman in Japanese on Japanese TV which was an interesting challenge. So, we created a sort of mini media storm out there.”

Back home, Neil, who these days is a freelance writer, author and ghost-writer, recognised the potential for wider interest in their story - a tale of seizing the moment in a world of opportunity.

And so, whilst still playing of course (the team are heading to the world championships in Helsinki, Finland this summer), he began to write. The Fall and Rise of the Mölkky Bar Kids: A Sporting Underdog Story is the result.

“I want people to feel like they’re in a warm bath and enjoy it, enjoy our adventure with us. I want people to laugh reading it, maybe identify a bit with some of the situations we might have found ourselves in, in our age profile,” he says.

“It wasn’t meant to mushroom like this. It was a try out that got out of hand really that’s led us around the world playing.

"In some sense it's got out of control but it’s a great game, a very inclusive game, and I’d encourage people to give it a go. For me and for all of us, it’s been a great adventure.”

- The Fall and Rise of the Mölkky Bar Kids: A Sporting Underdog Story by Neil Squires, published by Icon Books, is out July 2, priced £20.