May 16 2007
Punch Football: Ballown for the 21st Century
From the start of this relaunch, my contention has always been that all the world’s football games are nothing more than man-made games with man-made rules. We created these games, we agreed upon the rules to these games, and we can change those rules any time we want.
And we do. Football didn’t just drop out of the sky in all its current forms. Football codes constantly change and evolve over time. Football today looks much different than football 100 years ago, and it will look completely different 100 years from now.
Sometimes by changing those rules, though, we create new and different games. Hell, rugby alone begat lots of different football codes — rugby union, rugby league, American football and Canadian football. Each of those codes has variations as well. Both union and league have rugby sevens variations. American football begat things like Arena Football and Six Man Football.
So we’re going to make our own football variation today. Continuing on a theme from this post, we’re going to take the current Association football game and make one alteration — limited use of hands.
I’ve written before about the precedent for this — the old Northeastern game of ballown, which was popular in the early 19th century. Ballown allowed you to advance the ball with either your feet or your fists. That’s what we’ll allow in this game, but to bring it in line with modern football, we’ll eliminate the blocking and mass formation plays prevalent in ballown, because we don’t want to get anybody killed. In fact, let’s take the existing laws of the game from FIFA and simply add this rule:
Handling of the ball is permitted for players not designated as goalie under the following conditions. Players are not permitted to:
Any of the above violations shall result in a free kick for the opposing side.
And just like that, you’ve got a 19th-century American football game revamped for the 21st century.
We should do something about the name, though. “Ballown” isn’t going to work. Too old-fashioned. So let’s give it something with a little more flair: punch football. It’s bold, it’s catchy, it sounds a little violent, and it gets to the heart of the game itself — the ability to punch the ball as well as kick it. Perfect.
Is this intended to replace soccer? Of course not. Did rugby league replace rugby union? Did either of those codes supplant Aussie Rules in the land down under? That continent has leagues for four different football codes, and even with all those leagues, some Australians still choose to play American football — just like some Americans choose to play Aussie Rules here. Punch football is merely another alternative code for you to try. Who knows? You might actually have some fun playing it.
I want to see an entry for punch football in Wikipedia by the end of the week, people. I also want to see some people give punch football a try. Organize a pickup game or two, and report back to me about how (and how much) using your hands changes the game. Perhaps one day, you’ll be looked at as pioneers of a great 21st century football game.
Or you’ll be looked at as a bunch of wankers. Hey, lots of people thought John Heisman was a wanker for promoting the forward pass. Where’s his name now?
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I’m sorry, but “punch football” sounds like either a fistfight/brawl breaking out during a football match, or a football match post-game party where someone put too much rum into the punch. Or, both.
***We should do something about the name, though. “Ballown” isn’t going to work. Too old-fashioned.***
There are too many sports “codes” that no one plays out there, already. Why add another? Check out one of those books on sports, that diagrams all the various sports and their rules. Those are just the popular ones, usually, but they often include a few sports that were invented but are hardly ever played anymore (ie, speedball). People are inventing new sports all the time. Have been doing so for over a hundred years. Getting people to actually play these new sports, however, is another matter entirely.
The only reason to invent or reinvent ballown football, is for historical reasons. Therefore, the name “ballown” must be used, precisely because it is “old fashioned”. If it isn’t old fashioned and rooted in history, than it is just another newly invented game of no importance or wider meaning whatsoever. It will rapidly take its place alongside speedball, floorball, stickball, earthball, korfball and mondo croquet ( http://www.mondocroquet.com/ ) in the “oh isn’t that quaint” category. The fate of most of these newly invented sports is to quickly disappear, for instance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austus
***Austus is a sport which was started in Australia during World War II when U.S. soldiers wanted to play football against the Australians. Because American Football is rarely played in Australia and Australian rules football is rarely played in the USA the players wrote up composite rules consisting of throwing, which isn’t allowed in Australian rules football and kicking which is rarely used in gridiron. The name comes from the first four letters of Australia (AUST) and the initials of the United States (US).
The game has rarely, if ever been played since.***
If, however, you want to engage in the game of “historical what if”, imagining ballown football as it might have evolved in the USA if rugby and gridiron had not gotten so popular, is certainly an interesting thought experiment. Here is one possible line of evolution that did not happen, but would have produced an interesting sport:
First off, early football games tended to have a lot more players. 25 a side seemed to be popular, at least with some of the early USA college football games. Goal keepers were not always employed, but goals were. Let’s assume ballown keeps the large number of players (25 a side), and uses goals but does not bother with goal keepers.
Let’s also assume ballown remained different from rugby, gridiron, the Boston Game, Gaelic football and Aussie football, and forbade carrying the ball, or catching the ball, but allowed punching the ball, in addition to kicking.
So, you can use any part of the body to move the ball, but you can’t catch, hold, or carry the ball with your hands. Slap or punch the ball, fine, but don’t catch or carry it.
Next, let’s assume that we stick to the American notion of “blocking” players who do not have the ball. Sure, this can get violent, but since no one is carrying the ball, we aren’t talking gridiron style tackling. Just blocking.
Imagine a wall or scrum of blockers shepherding a person dribbling the ball forward. This actually does/did happen in other 19th century codes of football, ie some of the English public school football codes, where the ball was primarily moved by kicking yet you also had scrums or “bullies” which were pretty much shoving matches designed to move the ball forward.
You would have to forbid locking of arms, as gridiron eventually had to do, to prevent things from getting out of hand.
No grabbing around the waist, or grabbing anywhere, but you can push the other guy around with your hands or arms, much like is done in gridiron.
Next, since we got 50 players on the field at one time, let’s do like the Aussies do and play on a cricket pitch, because with that many players, you need a large pitch. Back in the 19th century, cricket was still very popular in the USA and there were cricket pitches all over the eastern seaboard. Might as well put that space to good use in the fall and winter offseason.
So, we got a cricket pitch sized field, with some goals at either end (perhaps evolving into the kinds of points system used in Aussie rules, ie, 6 point goals, 1 point behinds, etc.), no goalkeepers, 25 players a side, and we got a round ball that can be advanced by kicking it, punching it, or in any other way, but cannot be carried, held, or caught with the hands. We forbid rugby or gridiron style tackling but allow blocking or “interference”, gridiron style.
Obviously the rules of the game would evolve over time. Maybe you would see more and more restrictions on how one could tackle (soccer style) or block (gridiron style), but the basics would remain so you would have a sport with elements of both soccer and gridiron.
Sounds like a lot of fun to me - too bad it didn’t happen! Your version of “punch football” doesn’t sound much like ballown, since you allow limited use of the hands, so it’s probably just as well you don’t try calling it ballown. But in either case, if the game did not evolve naturally and did not develop its own following over time, it is unlikely to be anything more than another “artificially” invented sports code.
It might interest you to know I’ve seen pictures/engravings from 19th century American newspapers (IIRC) of civil war soldiers playing football in a manner that looks like ballown football - they appear to be kicking the ball and punching it with their fists. Unfortunately I don’t remember where I saw it.
***Your version of “punch football” doesn’t sound much like ballown, since you allow limited use of the hands, so it’s probably just as well you don’t try calling it ballown.***
My mistake, I meant, rather, that by eliminating blocking and mass formations, you really aren’t talking ballown anymore.
Since you’ve basically got association football with limited use of the hands (ie, punching the ball), you really have something close to some of the English public school football codes. Why reinvent the wheel? These English public school codes are still being played today.
Dave, we really need to get you your own blog.
There’s a difference between reinventing something practical (the wheel) and reinventing something fun (the game). And I’m just havin’ fun, man. I like all the what-ifs and such. It’s interesting to ponder, say, what Aussie Rules would be like if it had always been played with a round ball, rather than an oblong rugby-like ball. (Maybe that’s why I like those International Rules matches so much…)
I know all about Austus, too. I wrote about it for AOL Sports last Pearl Harbor day.
http://www.aolsportsblog.com/2006/12/07/football-history-101-the-lost-hybrid-game/
I’m sure it won’t ever make a comeback, but just for a little while, it’s fun to think about whether Julius Peppers could outplay Dean Cox in the ruck, or whether Champ Bailey could cover Barry Hall.