MIDDLETOWN, Md. -- Ben Nelson can do wild things with a marble. With a flip of his wrist and a snap of his fingers, the small ball zooms away. Then, it rolls right back as if tethered by elastic cord.
That psychs out other players, says Ben, 16, the 1998 U.S. boys national champion. He gets down on all fours to demonstrate his mastery of the backspin technique: Twist, flip, snap. Twist, flip, snap.Ben will need all his tricks Friday in London at the World Marbles Cup when the U.S. team -- nine teenagers and a 35-year-old man -- go knuckle-to-knuckle with British men in their 40s and 50s who have honed their skills outside pubs.
Will the kids be all right? Coach Jeff Kimmell hasn't a doubt.
"I think the English team might be a little shy at first, playing with a bunch of kids. But once they lose a couple matches, they'll be shocked at how good the kids are," he said.
They're good, all right. The U.S. shooters -- from Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia -- include six national champions and three from a team that beat the Brits in 1996 at an international tournament in Tennessee.
But the cup is the granddaddy of marbles tournaments in a country where the game dates back to when Julius Caesar's soldiers brought it from Rome. The last Americans to win the cup were from Kentucky, in 1992.
A German national team also will compete in the tournament outside the Greyhound Pub in Tinsley Green. The English regard the Americans as more serious contenders, but they aren't losing any sleep over it, according to Sam McCarthy-Fox, a tournament official.
"What, them Yanks?" he said. "Good luck to them, that's what I say."
Kimmell's players have been practicing for months on the English game, which differs substantially from Ringer, the official game of the U.S. National Marbles Tournament held each June in Wildwood, N.J.
Ringer is played in a ring 10 feet wide with 13 marbles. The English ring is just 6 feet wide, and the game uses 49 marbles. The objective is the same: to knock a majority of marbles out of the ring by bumping them with a larger shooting marble -- called an agate by Americans and a tolley by the Britons.
Here's the biggest difference: Ringer is played on a smooth concrete surface whereas the English game is played on sand, a quarter- to a half-inch deep. The sand presents resistance, requiring players to use brute force as well as finesse.
"It's hard to control your marble. It's a power game," said U.S. team member Bob Darr, a 35-year-old bakery truck driver who was chosen partly for his expertise in the English style.
McCarthy-Fox said the home court and its typically drizzly conditions should give the Englishmen an edge: "Basically, they're used to the rain, they're used to the cold weather."
The World Cup winner receives no cash. But Kimmell hopes publicity about the tournament will boost recognition of marbles, which he is proposing as a demonstration sport in the 2004 Summer Olympics.
On the Net: On marbles: www.streetplay.com/thegames/marbles
National Marbles Tournament in June: www.blocksite.com/wildwood