Stoolball

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Women players in Dorking (Surrey)
Illustration from A Little Pretty Pocket Book , 18th century

Stoolball is an old ball sport ( batball game ) from southern England, where variants are still played in schools today. Focus is on Sussex with several local leagues; there are also some teams in Kent .

Originally, the game was run by female milkers who used the seats of their overturned milking stools as wickets . (English from stool stool ) is also the name of the game derives. Equipment and rules are largely the same as those of cricket ; Teams consist of 11 players, either women or mixed.

Records indicate that the game was operated as early as 1450 and it is mentioned in the classic book Don Quixote . The game also appeared in a 1656 Cumberland and Westmoreland Counties notice complaining that "too much attention was paid to shooting, soccer, stoolball and wrestling."

Modern rules for stoolball were adopted at a meeting in Glynde, East Sussex , in 1881 . Here, at least the dimensions (spacing of the wickets , position of the throwing mark for the bowler ) have been standardized.

The National Stoolball Association was founded in 1979 in Haywards Heath (West Sussex) by representatives from 9 different leagues and associations. It replaces the Stoolball Association for Great Britain , which went down in 1942 - which was partly due to World War II and partly to the death of Major WW Grantham . He had initiated this first association in 1923 and established the enormous popularity of the game after the First World War: in 1927 there were more than 1000 clubs that played stoolball.

The goals set at the 1979 National Stoolball Association inaugural meeting were:

  1. Promotion and dissemination of the stoolball.
  2. Cooperation between regional associations and, if necessary, establishment of such.
  3. Study of the rule variants in the different parts of the country with the aim of standardizing them. This lasted four years. National championships have been possible since then.

swell

  • Marcus Rosenstein: The Ball Sports Lexicon. The ball and ball games in the world . Weinmann, Berlin 1997. ISBN 3-87892-062-8 .
  • National Stoolball Association website (see below)

Web links