A coconut shy is a traditional game, originally known as 'The love grove alley', frequently found as a sidestall at funfair

Funfair

A funfair or simply "fair" is a small to medium sized travelling show primarily composed of stalls and other amusements. Larger fairs such as the permanent fairs of cities and seaside resorts might be called a fairground, although technically this should refer to the land where a fair is...

s and fête

Fête

Fête is a French word meaning festival, celebration or party, which has passed into English as a label that may be given to certain events.-Description:It is widely used in England and Australia in the context of a village fête,...

s. The game consists of throwing wooden balls at a row of coconut

Coconut

The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...

s balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins each coconut successfully dislodged. In some cases other prizes may be won instead of the coconuts.

The word 'shy' in this context is a colloquial English term, meaning 'to throw' or toss.

The origins of the game are unclear, although the term is first listed in the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

 in 1903. It probably derives from the game of Aunt Sally

Aunt Sally

thumb|right|312px|A drawing from the 1911 edition of Whiteley's General Catalogue.Aunt Sally is a traditional throwing game. The term is often used metaphorically to mean something that is a target for criticism...

, with coconuts being seen as an exotic prize in the early 20th century. One theory (Harries, 2004) suggests the coconut shy may have originated at the Kingston, Surrey, annual Pleasure Fair in 1867 when that event took place on the town's Fairfield, not far from a coconut fibre mill on the Hogsmill river. The Surrey Comet reported how "for the small sum of one penny, you could have three throws with sticks with the prospect of getting a cocoa nut...". The coconuts could have come from nearby Middle Mill that advertised in the Surrey Comet as "The Patent Cocoa Fibre Co Ltd the only cocoa nut fibre manufactory in Surrey. All descriptions of mats in cocoa nut fibre made to order wholesale." Today the only reminder of Kingston's association with coconuts is a pub in Mill Street, which was the principal route between Fairfield and Middle Mill for several centuries. Called "The Cocoanut" it is not only spelled the old way but it is the only pub in Britain with that name.

Popular culture

The game is celebrated in Jon Lake's 1944 music hall

Music hall

Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...

 song I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

"I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" is a novelty song composed in 1944 by Fred Heatherton, an English songwriter. It celebrates the coconut shy at funfairs....

and best known from recordings and performances by Merv Griffin

Merv Griffin

Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W Broadcasting...

 in the 1950s. More recently the song was used by Disney

Walt Disney Feature Animation

Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio headquartered in Burbank, California. The studio, founded in 1923 as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio by brothers Walt and Roy Disney, is the oldest subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

 in the film The Lion King

The Lion King

The Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...

.

H.G. Wells refers to the cocoanut shy (shies) as a type of carnival attraction in The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man is a science fiction novella by H.G. Wells published in 1897. Wells' novel was originally serialised in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, and published as a novel the same year...

 written 1897. Wells was born (1866) and grew up in Bromley (close to the birthplace of Hannah Wood), less than 20 miles from Kingston.

On The Mighty Boosh

The Mighty Boosh

The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows and a six episode radio series, it has since spawned a total of twenty television episodes for BBC Three and two live tours of the UK, as well as two live shows in the...

, Howard Moon makes a joke to Vince's coconut friend, Precious, about being "coconut shy", in the episode entitled, "The Nightmare of Milky Joe".

Other countries

Popular on school-parties and in a professional way to be seen on fairs in German-speaking countries is the so called Dosenwerfen, the throwing of balls at empty tins. In France, the game is called Chamboule-Tout and also well practiced in fun fairs.