led me to this fascinating little article on “Cornish Wrestling” , basically a style of wrestling where two men grab each other by the shirt in an outdoor sandpit.
Are there any other unusual sports or pastimes practiced in oinly one area like this. Where I live, in West Texas, we have a few little local games like “huachas” which is sort of like horseshoes but uses washers instead - but nothing dramatic or odd.
unfortunately i didn’t get to see a game whilst i was out there, but in thailand and, i think, in india they play elephant polo. two people astride an elephant, one drives and the other swings at a football with a very long stick.
here in japan they play pachinko. not a sport as such. you place ball-bearings in a vertical pinball machine and steer them down. although profitting through gambling is illegal, they ignore this and you can make a tidy packet if you get good enough.
In Chatham, Illinois (5-6 miles SSW of Springfield) they have a cow-chip throwing contest during their annual Sweet Corn Festival. A cow-chip is basically a flattened, semi-hard cow turd. *[sub]See INTERSTING SIDEBAR below.[/sub]
Also, some other small town in central Illinois, whose name escapes me, has an annual contest in which competitors try to launch a pumpkin as far as possible without destroying it; well, it will naturally be destroyed on the ground, but you can’t destroy it upon launch or in mid-air. Air-pressure cannons, powder cannons, catapults, and Trebuchet have all been used.
INTERSTING SIDEBAR: A couple of years ago the town of Chatham, Illinois went through a big hullabaloo about their team mascot being called the “Redskins.” Several correspondents to the Editorials page of the State Journal-Register suggested new names for the team. One writer suggested that they bow to the city’s cow-chip throwing tradition and re-name the teams the “Chippers,” and paint cow turds on the players’ helmets. Ultimately, however, the teams were re-named the “Titans,” but that is neither here nor there.
I couldn’t find a web-link to it, but in Providence, RI we have an annual “Fat Man in the Bathtub” race. Based on the Little Feat song of the same name, it’s exactly what you’d imagine : a bunch of fat men get pushed in bathtubs on wheels down the middle of Westminster Street.
“If there’s a Heaven, I bet they have Crash-O-Rama every night!”
– said by a small boy to his father after the final derby
Sorry, couldn’t find anything more on the mattress races. Every two laps, the drivers have to stop and pile another mattress on top of the car. Winner has the most mattresses on the car at the end of the race.
Candlepin bowling is big in New England, especially in the Boston area. Up until a few years ago they were among the highest rated sports telecasts locally, week after week. There are more candlepin bowling alleys near me than “regular” bowling alleys, by far. (And the natives get very upset when you call it “regular” bowling. Which is why I do it).
That’d be Morton, IL, the Pumpkin Capital of the world, and where I went to high school. Apparently they can 90% of the world’s pumpkin there. In the fall you can smell pumpkin cooking for miles.
Here in Sweden there is a fun outdoor game called Kubb…it’s played with wooden pegs and a king piece…you divide into teams and each team takes turns trying to knock down the king piece with their wooden batons. There’s a little more to it than that, but after having a few schnapps I began to get a little confused as to the actual rules. We won.
The oddest sport popular around here is disc golf. The course is laid out like a golf course, and you use small discs, (OK, a frisbee) and try to get it into a basket on the pin. It scores like golf.
It may not sound too exciting, but you try to find a small disc in the bushes while intoxicated. And no, I wasn’t invited back to play again.
Here in Savannah, the game of Half-Rubber was supposedly invented. It’s basically a stick ball variation except you take a rubber ball about the size of a baseball and cut it in half. The new “half-rubber” has some interesting aerodynamic properties making it a bitch to hit.
Of course, Wolfie, we won’t mention the other Kiwi national er… “sport” which involves gumboots.
[sub]Sorry, couldn’t resist.[/sub]
To answer the OP, well I guess Australian Rules Football would be the obvious one here (though it’s not a niche sport here - it packs stadiums. I only include it because it’s barely known overseas). We have lots of those gimmicky student-bar type of things such as canetoad racing, and in the outback, at Alice Springs, they have a yacht race. Not any old yacht race, mind you. It’s held in a dry river bed. The “yachts” are powered the same way the Flintstones’ car is.
