The History of the Breed.

  For millennia the old english game fowls have been kept, by kings and aristocracy to the  working class proletarian. 2000 years ago Julius Caesar wrote of the Brits keeping them, not for meat or egglaying purposes, but for pleasure. They have certainly been favourites  of  many kings, queens and princes of Great Britain , notably from the Scottish royal house of Stuart and the English Tudors. When the British empire started expanding, the british officers, soldiers and trade merchants invariably took their favourite fighting cocks with them to wherever they were stationed, thus exporting the breed throughout the inhabited world - they soon became popular amongst the locals.

   After cockfighting was banned in the U.K the breed became popular in the show pavilion. After the 1849 prohibition law was passed in the U.K. many of the top strains were exported to countries where the sport was still legal, such as the Americas . These birds- recognised for their quality of gameness were kept pure and selected for their quality in the pit. Of course Old English Game were not known by this name back then, never-the-less a lot of these families of American fowl are still as pure, if not more so, than their cousins back in the U.K and elsewhere, their pedigrees going back to the top strains of the British pit fowls of the 18th and 19th centuries. It wasn't until late in the 19th century that a group of people in the UK realised there was a danger of the breed being lost, and therefore formed a club, and a standard was drawn up. The breed was named the 'old english game' as opposed to the new modern game which were so popular at the time. One of the original members and progenitors of this club -the 'oxford club' was Herbert Atkinson, who also published a number of books and drew up prints of the breed. It is obvious when reading the standard the stress put on points to get a way from the' modern game' type being shown at the time, hence broad shoulders, short back, short thighs, strong neck etc.

  Today old english game are one of the most popular breeds of fowl seen at shows around the world. By the middle of the 20th century two distinct types had emerged, the modern heavier, larger breasted exhibition type carlisle birds becoming the more common, while a few stalwarts kept with integrity the original oxford type -that is the close-heeled, clever, well-balanced athletic fighting fowl of antiquity. Through careful linebreeding  they kept these ancient-of-breeds in all their myriads of colours as pure as they were in past centuries.