Penny football
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the game called by this name played with only one coin, see Penny rugby.
Penny football (UK, Coin football) is a coin game played upon a table top. The aim of the game is to score more goals with the pennies than your opponent.
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[edit] How to play
[edit] Requirements
- 3 coins (ideally of the same size)
- a tabletop, length of roughly 1 metre by 1 metre, but size isn't important
- 2 hands each
[edit] Rules
Penny football is a 2-player game, and flipping a coin decides who starts.
Player 1 starts by placing his 3 coins in a triangular formation, with all coins touching each other laying flat on the ground, one coin closer to himself than the others. Player 2 makes a goal from his hands by placing both his knuckles next to each other on the opposite edge of the table to his, with his pinkie fingers lying straight forward on the table surface. One finger (normally the index finger), controls a coin (the goalkeeper), and this finger can move at his whim, but the rest of his goal must remain unmoving. Player 2 then "kicks off" by pushing forward the penny closest to him, with just one touch. The 3 coins should then be scattered about the table. From then on, Player 1 can try to shoot at her opponent's goal. A valid play occurs when one penny is passed twixt the other two, without them touching. When he is in a good position, he may attempt to score, by shooting his coin at his opponent's goal, and Player 2 must try to stop Player 1's coin from passing. A goal is scored when the coin passes between Player 2's pinky fingers and hits his knuckles.
[edit] Fouls
A foul occurs when
- Two of the attacker's coins collide (except from the kick-off)
- One of the attacker's coins falls off the table, or outside the boundaries
- The attacker pushes the coin in an irregualr manner, e.g. hits it twice in succession.
After a foul or a goal, Player 2 becomes the attacker and must try to score in Player 1's goal in a similar way. The game continues up to a designated time or up to a designated number of goals, and the winner is declared. If both players have the same number of goals, a sudden-death penalty shootout takes place, where each player has just one coin, and they take it in turn to shoot at each other's goal from the half-way mark with one shot.
[edit] UK variations
Goal is created using fingers of just one hand. Knuckles are placed against table edge and first finger and little finger are extended. In the UK, pennies tend to be a little too light to control. Any denomination of coins may be used (hence the name, "Coin Football", popular there), with 10p pieces particularly common, as well as 2p.
