Since I don’t own a teevee, I like to stop and watch the ones at the train station for my weekly 30 secs of mind-numbing entertainment.
Anyway, today there was this absolutely crazy sport playing on BS2 but since there was no sound I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.
From what I can tell:
a) It seems to be played in Europe, or somewhere with European-style architecture. (i.e. Old stone buildings.)
b) The field is smaller than a football field but larger than a hockey rink. It is covered with dirt/mud.
c) The game is played with something that looks like a rugby ball.
d) To score points, you take the ball to your oponent’s side and just throw it out of the playing area. Either there is no goal per se, or the goal is the entire width of the field.
e) There might be 10, maybe more, players in each team. They do not wear any sort of protection and run around bare-chested.
f) There doesn’t seem to be any rules.
g) Wrestling your oponents to the ground, punching them in the face seem not only permitted but encouraged.
f) Overall picture: a bunch of men, bloodied and covered with mud engaging in a chaotic melee that would make game 6 of the 1989 Wales Conference finals seem like a tame curling game. Think the bastard child of hybrid boxing and rugby, but more violent.
No, it’s not hurling, although I didn’t know about that one either.
Players do not use any equipment.
Looking at the hurling link you gracefully provided, I’d have to say that hurling seems way too, mmm, civilized. Gee they wear jerseys.
At any given moment, there is one guy running with the ball, another one running after him, and at least ten couples either joyfully slugging it out or wrestling in the mud.
Let me re-emphasise that this game makes a rugby game gone bad look like something for sissies. I have never seen anything quite so violent.
I think I saw this on TV a few years ago. If I remember correctly, it is played in Italy once a year (so as players can recover from their injuries). Not sure of the name though… My favourite play was when this guy was gracefully weaving through the opposition, making them look like complete fools, then WHAM!!! Flykick to the head, out cold.
