Last Friday, those lovable scamps at We Are the Postmen found this video…
…just your typical montage of quirky stuff that happens in the game of Association football, like scoring goals off your face and taking a curtain call in front of a whole bunch of empty bleachers.
This particular sequence in the middle of the montage, though, got my attention…
It’s funny because it shows a guy punching the ball into the goal — which, of course, you can’t do in soccer, because using your hands makes you a wanker.
But what if it didn’t make you a wanker? What if the laws of the game allowed this?
Consider, if you will, the old American game of ballown, which first became popular at the College of New Jersey in the 1820s. This was essentially a full-contact football game in which you couldn’t catch the ball, but you could either kick it or beat it with your fists. You could also physically block other players from approaching the ball-handler — yet another twist Walter Camp & his generation added to rugby to turn it into American football. (Blocking in rugby is called “obstruction,” and it’s a penalty. Seriously.)
In fact, this early game of ballown may have been the basis for the first intercollegiate football game in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers. It was a completely different game than modern college football, and if some Canadians hadn’t introduced rugby to Harvard footballers five years later, American football might look very different today.
The idea of using your hands may have been frowned upon at the early Football Association meetings, but many American fans — especially American football fans — still scoff at soccer for disallowing use of hands. After all, Americans have a rich history of working with their hands. Everybody loves a “handyman” in this country. Home Depot and Lowe’s have been making billions off that concept for years now.
So what happens if we take that old ballown rule of striking the ball with your fist and add it to the modern Association football game? What does the game become then? Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out?
1 response so far ↓
1 a different dave // May 16, 2007 at 9:07 pm
***After all, Americans have a rich history of working with their hands. Everybody loves a “handyman” in this country. Home Depot and Lowe’s have been making billions off that concept for years now.***
Right, Dave, because we all know that only Americans have a rich history of working with their hands, only Americans love a “handyman”; only in America do gigantic corporations make billions off the home handyman concept, etc.
Insert “eye rolling smiley” here. Hmm, not sure if your site supports that icon or not.