Kick-to-kick
Encyclopedia
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
fans, and a recognised Australian term for kick and catch type games. In its "markers up" form, it is the usual casual version of Australian rules (similar to the relationship between backyard/beach cricket and the established forms of cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
).
Although not a sport in itself, the term is used to describe a social exercise played in parks, fields, streets, back yards and also as a playground game that requires at least two people.
Kick-to-kick is used as a warm-up exercise of many Australian rules football clubs and has been the beginnings of many clubs in far-flung places.
It has also long been a pitch invasion
Pitch invasion
A pitch invasion or field invasion, known as rushing the field in the United States, occurs when a crowd of people who are watching a sports game run onto the field, to celebrate or protest about an incident...
tradition in the breaks immediately after official Australian rules football matches, although much to the disappointment of fans, the Australian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
has banned the practice at most of their venues.
Informal kick-to-kick
The two players will space themselves about 15 metres or more apart and alternate kicking whilst the other markMark (Australian football)
A mark is a skill in Australian rules football where a player cleanly catches a kicked ball that has travelled more than 15 metres without anyone else touching it or the ball hitting the ground....
s. Sometimes players will run and/or bounce when returning a long ball and experiment with different kicking styles, such as the drop punt
Drop punt
A drop punt is a type of kick in various codes of football.It is the primary method of disposing the ball by foot in Australian rules football and the name describes its technique. The ball is held vertically, and dropped and kicked before it hits the ground, resulting in the ball spinning...
, torpedo punt
Torpedo punt
The torpedo punt, similar to a punt in American Football, is a kicking technique implemented in Rugby League, Rugby Union and Australian rules football to enhance the distance the ball is kicked....
or checkside punt
Checkside punt
Is like a banana kick but the opposite way, the checkside punt is a kicking style used in Australian Rules and rugby league football. When kicked, it bends away from the body and is usually used when a set shot for goal is lined up on a narrow angle....
. If goal posts are present, participants will often position themselves in front and behind the posts to practice scoring. Kick-to-kick is often a family pastime and many footballers learned their skills in games of backyard kick-to-kick. It has been suggested that informal kick-to-kick can assist in battling obesity in children.
Variations
More formal kick-to-kick can involve multiple players, usually grouped in two bunches at either end for easier return of the ball, resulting in similar informal games, such as force 'em backs. This type of play can include some play contesting, many Australian rules fans requiring a stepladder player to emulate the speckySpecky
A spectacular mark is a term for a type of mark in Australian rules football...
or spectacular mark seen on the football field, often also heard crying out famous names of spectacular mark proponents such as Jesaulenko
Alex Jesaulenko
Alex 'Jezza' Jesaulenko MBE is a former Australian rules footballer and coach. He is regarded as one of the game's greatest-ever players and is an official Legend of the Australian Football Hall of Fame...
, Ablett or Capper
Warwick Capper
Warwick Capper is a retired high profile professional Australian rules football full-forward who played with the Sydney Swans with a short stint at the Brisbane Bears in the VFL ....
.
End-to-end footy
Probably the most long-standing more formal version of kick-to-kick has also often been referred to as "end-to-end footy". It could best be described as, "competitive kick to kick". It is basically a game of two groups of players - one group at each end. Each group alternates with the other in terms of kicking and contesting for possession of the ball. In essence, ‘whoever gets' the ball at the receiving end wins that play and gets to kick the ball back to the other group. So, its aim is 'whoever gets'. As each person in the group contests individually against the other members of the group for the ball it is an 'every man for himself' activity.It has become a most popular activity of Australian footballers and is often used by clubs - both VFL/AFL and local, particularly at the commencement of training sessions. It has long been played in schools, at local parks and within various organizations for many decades because it is very easy to access the Australian footy game in this form: one does not have to join a formal club, few people are needed to 'kick up' a ball amongst themselves and many fewer injuries result from playing it than in the formal game. In proper context, the formal Aussie Rules football match, by contrast, requires a field of 18 players per side plus interchange players [that is, there are 36 needed on the field at any one time to play the game properly]. Also, the size of the ground needed is cricket ground size. The beauty of regular kick-to-kick activity is that you only need a few 'players' to play it, and in school grounds, with one group playing at each end, players really only need about 50-70 metres by about 30 metres of space in which to engage the activity satisfactorily. More specifically, in most versions, a person from the group at one end kicks the ball impartially to the group of people at the other end, whereupon all those 'players' then contest for possession of the ball, as they attempt to outmark each other or gain the ball in some other 'legal' manner, suitable to the rules of regular Australian football, so that the rules that apply to gaining access on a football during a proper game of Australian football also apply to the usual kick-to-kick version. The key difference being that the contest for the ball stops as soon as someone cleanly has the ball in his/her possession. There are also usually no teams, as the spirit of the activity is that each person competes for themselves and kicks impartially to the group at the other end. This all means that shepherding, tackling, smothering and excessive bumping, etc. are not a part of the activity. Whoever wins the ball at his end wins the opportunity to "have a kick", and is then free to kick it to the group at the other end without opposition or interference.
In turn, then, the individuals receiving the kick at the other end, then also compete for the ball. Thus activity alternates between ends: kicking and competing for the ball, back and forth between the groups.
Scoring is rarely a part of this kick-to-kick game – it is generally a more informal 'play' engagement in this sense, despite that play itself can become very competitive in kick-to-kick football. It can become so competitive at times, in fact, that some players (usually among those finding it hard to get a kick) will “wax” together to be able to get more kicks: that is, two or more people at the one end will agree to work or team together to get more overall possession of the ball, and players within this waxing unit will then take turns among themselves in kicking the ball to the other end when one of their members wins possession of the ball.
On the other hand, the end-to-end activity can also become so informal as to also introduce more than one ball into the overall engagement, so that 2 or 3 balls can be in play simultaneously. Despite this informality, however, this does not always prevent the competitive spirit of the game, as some players trying to dominate will even try to win two or more balls upon one another to the point of carrying one or more under each arm.
Marks up, King of the pack and Points Up, Jack in the Pack
In some versions, when there are three or more people playing, it could turn into a game called marks up, markers up, King of the Pack or Jack in the Pack where one person kicks into the pack (where the rest of the people are) and whoever marks it cleanly, like in a real aussie rules game, will swap with the person who kicked it. This is a popular game to play at parks or in schools at recess when there is not enough time to sort out teams and start a game.A variation on the "Marks Up" game appeared around 5 years ago in schools, where Points Up was the common game being played. This was because most people didn't like being up, and preferred the challenge of being in a pack. Therefore, taking a mark would be rewarded with going up, which is not what people wanted. So, after people deliberately dropped marks because they didn't want to go up, Points Up was created. Now a player who makes a mistake (kicking a point) has to go up. Alternatively, the player who takes the mark (who would normally be "up") is then given the "power" to decide who he wants to be "up". This gives an added incentive to take the mark as with a big pack or even just a few people some are better kicks then others. An extra rule, First Kick, has been added so players can't go up immediately after someone else has.
Origins of the pastime
The ancient indigenous Australian game of Marn GrookMarn Grook
Marn Grook , literally meaning "Game ball", is a collective name given to a number of traditional Indigenous Australian recreational pastimes believed to have been played at gatherings and celebrations of up to 50 players. It is often confused with a separate indigenous game resembling Association...
, which is believed by some to have influenced Australian rules football is similar in many ways to the modern varieties of the kick-to-kick pastime.
Author Sean Fagan
Sean Fagan
Sean Patrick Fagan is a Sydney, Australia based sports historian, author and journalist, specialising in early Australian history and particular the origins and local development of the popular football codes in Australia. He has written articles for Australian national daily newspapers, numerous...
claims that the kick-to-kick tradition originates with rugby football in England, citing books from 1856 which make reference to the term "punt about", however although the sources mention kicking practice they do not indicate other participants catching or marking the ball or kicking it back.
Kick-to-kick type practice in other sports
Rugby unionRugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
and rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
fans and players do not tend to participate in kick-to-kick as much as Australian rules football fans (primarily because kicking is a specialist technique in these sports; and because of variants of the codes that are playable on a small scale, such as touch football
Touch football (rugby league)
Touch is a field sport also known as Touch Football, or in some countries as Touch Rugby. Touch is overseen worldwide by the Federation of International Touch . Touch has traditionally been played in Australia and New Zealand but the sport has expanded internationally and features many regional and...
). Gaelic football
Gaelic football
Gaelic football , commonly referred to as "football" or "Gaelic", or "Gah" is a form of football played mainly in Ireland...
and association football (soccer) fans also participate in a form of kick-to-kick with the round ball.