Halifax Ladies Friendly League used to have 16 pubs and clubs but has started the new season with only six teams.

The smoking ban has been blamed for its dwindling popularity, as well as 10 pubs closing in Calderdale this year already.

Christine Kershaw, 49, has been playing darts, dominoes and fives and threes in the league since 1975, and currently plays for the Halifax Catholic Club.

"Numbers started dwindling three or four years ago and the smoking ban has now killed it," said Mrs Kershaw, a smoker, of Pye Nest Gardens, Halifax.

"I would say about 75 per cent of players smoke."

The league runs from February to October and also consists of The Feathers, King Cross, Golden Pheasant, Pellon, Beehive and Cross Keys, King Cross, Volunteer Arms, Copley and the Murgatroyd Arms, Skircoat.

It is run by by 61-year-old Carole McKinley who will sit out this season after Ripponden Conservative Club was unable to field a team.

"It is the first time in 38 years I won't be playing which is a shame," said Mrs McKinley, of Ripponden. She said some young women were still attracted to pub games but the days of crowded midweek tap rooms were long gone.

The smoking ban and pressure on spending money had all taken its toll.

An alternative option for women is to play in the mixed sex Regin- ald Maude's Friendly League.

Its secretary Peter Field, of Mixenden, Halifax, said the winter league recently finished with 19 teams and it once had 24.

"The ladies league has been dropping for a while," said Mr Field.

Tony Payne, chief executive of the Brighouse-based Federation of Licensed Victuallers' Association, said pubs were also battling against supermarket competition, and rising fuel and cost-of-living prices.

He said darts remained popular due to TV coverage and dominoes was popular in some areas but he wasn't aware of leagues suddenly folding.

"And, younger people tend to be more interested in pool than dominoes," he said.