From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

Tony Williams wrote:
> Gary Britt wrote:
>> Never heard of those sports?
>
> Phil provided the relevant info. Thanks, Phil.
>
>> Maybe its something new the liberals have started in their continuing
>> efforts to feminize our male population.
>
> Yeah, they just changed the names to fool you. Didn't work with rugby
> though - they needed to add more time-outs and lots of protective
> padding before it caught on in the US.
>
& the ability to pass a ball forwards.

Rugby league fer pooftahs.



I have yet to understand why Yankee football never caught onto flinging it
down the line & back again.

Course at school we played Winchester football (known as WinCoFo )which is
a startlingly dangerous game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_College_Football

"The aim of the game is to kick the ball (a standard association
football) into Worms.

There are a few main rules in Winkies and most revolve around the basic
principle that each team can only kick the ball once before the other team
touches it. These are called "tag", "dribble",
"behind your side", and "handiwork". "Tag"
occurs when a team-mate kicks the ball, and a man on his own team then
kicks it without waiting for the other team to touch the ball. If, however,
the ball goes backwards off the first kick, the second man may play the
ball "down". This is when the ball is kicked and must not go more
than five feet into the air. "Dribble" is much the same, but
occurs if the same man touches the ball twice. "Behind your side"
is designed to stop people loitering up the pitch. Once a man on your team
kicks the ball, you must endeavour to get back to the point where he kicked
the ball from before you can move forward up the pitch.
"Handiwork" is any illegal use of the hands. Only the kicks (full
backs) can use their hands to pick the ball up off the ground. Any other
man may catch the ball on the full toss, but use of the hands at any other
time is deemed handiwork. A catch on the full toss by any player enables
them to take up to three steps and then "bust" the ball as far as
they can in the same way as one kicks a ball in rugby. Breaking any of
these rules means that play is brought one or two posts back for a hot.

In a standard team of 15 men, there are 8 forwards, known as hotmen,
collectively known as the hot, who play like a rugby scrum. Whenever the
ball goes out of play, or a foul is committed, a hot is held. This can be
held on ropes at the side, where the object is to flick the ball past the
opposing team, thus making them all offside and forcing them to retreat
under the "behind your side" rule, or into the middle of the
pitch. However, unlike in rugby, the ball cannot be hooked by any player
until the front row of one hot is entirely over the ball, at which point
the ball is "through".

Once the ball is out of the hot, the hotwatches (half-backs) try to get the
ball past the hot, either to kick the ball into Worms, or to kick the ball
into Ropes. If at any stage during the game the ball enters Ropes, it is
usually the job of the hot to go in and retrieve it, by getting the other
hot out of the way.

The winner is the team with the most points."

But it looks like ye olde "somme effect" may be passing:

"Until recently the canvases were only reseeded at the end of each
season and this led to a gradual degradation of the surface. Now areas are
returfed each year and the College Canvas (the Wembley of the game) is
properly drained."

Oh & this made me laugh as a typical piece of Wykhamical notions:

"Two other notable matches are Herman Pot and Poon Pot. Both are
played on the morning of the last day of Common Time. Herman pot is played
by the VIth Book I men from Trant's and Phil's"

Decode that then yer b*strds...


Btw the point of the canvas (i.e. a springy net down each side) is to
ensure the ball never goes out & as such the game never stops which esp
when knee deep in mud makes it a good physical workout.



Adam

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