Kick-to-kick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kick-to-kick is a pastime and well-known tradition of Australian rules football fans, and a recognised Australian slang term for kick and catch type games.
Although not a sport in itself, the term is used to describe a social exercise played in parks, fields, streets and back yards that requires at least two people. The two players will space themselves about 15 metres or more apart and alternate kicking whilst the other marks. Sometimes players will run and/or bounce when returning a long ball and experiment with different kicking styles, such as the drop punt, torpedo punt or checkside punt. 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 with their brothers or sisters until the dark of night.
Kick-to-kick has long been a pitch invasion tradition in the breaks immediately after official Australian rules football matches.
Playing "Kick to kick football" is sometimes used by Australian rules fans as a derogatory term to describe uncontested, possession based style of play sometimes seen at the professional AFL level, which many fans find boring and compare to non-contact sports such as basketball, and netball. This is due to kick-to-kick does not generally involve any of the contesting found in an official game of Australian rules football, such as tackling, bumping, smothering (known as a "charge down" in rugby league), spoiling and other one percenters which often result in more unpredictable change of possession.
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 specky or spectacular mark seen on the football field, often also heard crying out famous names of spectacular mark proponents such as Jesaulenko, Ablett or Capper.
Also when there are three or more people playing, it could turn into a game called marks up or markers up, 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.
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.
Despite a similar ball, rugby union and rugby league 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). Gaelic football fans also participate in a form of kick-to-kick with the round ball.
[edit] References in Popular Culture
Rock band TISM featured a song "'And The Ass Said To The Angel: "Wanna Play Kick To Kick?'" on the album Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance in 1988.
Michael Leunig painted "Street Football" in 1990. [1]
The pastime inspired a short film named "Kick to Kick" by Tony McNamara in 2000.
[edit] External links
- Michael Leunig's "Street Football" from National Archives of Australia
- Footballers to avoid in a session of "kick-to-kick" - from The Age
- Hope for glory - The Age
- Mobile Kick-to-Kick Variations Before Training (from afl.com.au)
- Sports stars can help fight battle of bulge - The Age
