There's More Than A Little Horsing Around at Horseshoe Tournament

The scent of burgers grilling and people sitting in lawn chairs chatting and laughing gave off the appearance of a giant family reunion.

In fact, the only way you’d know this was a tournament is getting a glimpse of the trophies sitting on a table, waiting to be claimed by the winners of the 38^th annual Manchester Horseshoe Tournament at Harry Wright Lake.

And like any family reunion, there were good-natured jokes and lots of laughs.

“Make sure you print this,” Michael Doyle said with a smirk, as shoes clinked and thudded in the nearby pits, “I come every year just to beat Joe Romans.”

Romans, seated under a tent across the way, chuckled.

“We’ve never actually faced each other (in the tournament),” said Romans, who works with Doyle at Clayton Masonry. Yet the duo have a light-hearted rivalry. A couple of years ago, Romans said, he went to work the day after the tournament and found a photo of himself raking a pit – the duty assigned to the loser of a game of horseshoes – taped to the steering wheel of his dump truck.

That was why he had a 4x6 of Doyle — who has won the tournament in the past — raking a pit taped to flap of his tent.

“I think we need a 12 by 13,” he said, as Doyle approached the tent. "Don't believe anything he says," Doyle said with a grin.

No one remembers now quite how the tournament got started back in 1973. Several of the competitors cited the involvement of Bob Conover, a gym teacher and track coach at Manchester High School, as key to it growth, but no one was certain how long he ran the event In the past 10 years especially, it has become a don’t-miss event. 

“We’ve played the tournament through thunderstorms,” said Randy Johnson, who ran the tournament for 10 years before turning over the reins to Josh Schnoor and Mike Sabie a couple of years ago. The event has grown so much that the horseshoe pits had to be moved and more added to accommodate the number of competitors.

On Saturday, 80 competitors took to the pits for the double-elimination singles tournament, which was to be followed by the doubles event, which Schnoor expected would have 50 entries.

“It’s just grown more and more every year,” Johnson said. The 2010 event had 72 entrants and some people were turned away, Schnoor said.

Cindy and Marty Fuller have been coming so long they couldn’t remember how many years they’d been coming.

“The first one was 1979, I think,” Marty said, but Cindy’s roots in it go back to the first event: her father, Leo Brennan, attended every tournament from its inception. “We have all the shirts,” she said, referring to the free T-shirts given out to each participant.

“The camaraderie is what brings me back,” Marty Fuller said, adding that the competition is a big factor as well. And for all the barbs and wisecracks, there was a certain modesty among the competitors.

Doyle, who had to be prodded by the Fullers into admitting he’d won the tournament, said he finished second twice.

“I reached the final one year and some old guy had to beat me twice," Doyle said, then winked and nodded in Fuller's direction.

Fuller just smiled.

The tournament includes fathers and sons competing, and the Fullers said their sons usually compete in the event, but this year they were both away, serving in the military.

“It’s a great event that seniors and youth can enjoy together,” said Brian Levance, who was hanging out with Romans.

“It’s just a great day,” Cindy Fuller said.

The winners of the 2011 tournament's singles competition were first, Joseph McGuigan; second, Thomas Bentley and third, Michael Delvirginia.  In the doubles competition, Pat Knapp and Richard Winkowski took first; second went to Delvirginia and Evan Ha, and third were Jimmy Souders and Tom Underwood, who were second in 2010.