Kick-to-kick is a

pastime A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing oth ...

and well-known tradition of

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

fans, and a recognised Australian term for kick and catch type games. It is a casual version of Australian rules (similar to the relationship between backyard/beach cricket and the established forms of

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

). 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 This is a list of games that used to be played by children, some of which are still being played today. Traditional children's games do not include commercial products such as board games but do include games which require props such as hopscotch ...

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 long been a

pitch invasion A pitch invasion (known in North America as field storming or rushing the field) occurs when a person or a crowd of people spectating a sporting event run onto the competition area, usually to celebrate or protest an incident, or sometimes as ...

tradition in the breaks immediately after official Australian rules football matches, although as professionalism in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

increased, the practice was discontinued at most of AFL venues.

Informal kick-to-kick

The two players will space themselves about 15 metres or more apart and alternate kicking whilst the other

mark Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fi ...

s. Sometimes players will run and/or bounce when returning a long ball and experiment with different kicking styles, such as the

drop punt The punt kick is a common style of kicking in Australian rules football. It is a kick where the ball is dropped from the players' hands and kicked slightly off the longer center line of the ball before it hits the ground. It is the primary mea ...

torpedo punt A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...

checkside punt The punt kick is a common style of kicking in Australian rules football. It is a kick where the ball is dropped from the players' hands and kicked slightly off the longer center line of the ball before it hits the ground. It is the primary me ...

. 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 back. This type of play can include some play contesting, many Australian rules fans requiring a ''stepladder'' player to emulate the

specky A spectacular mark (also known as a specky, speckie, speccy, screamer or hanger) is a mark (or catch) in Australian rules football that typically involves a player jumping up on the back of another player. The spectacular mark has become a much ...

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''.

Origins of the pastime

The ancient

indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

game of Marn Grook, 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, also spelled Seán or Séan in Irish English, is a male given name of Irish origin. It comes from the Irish versions of the Biblical Hebrew name ''Yohanan'' (), Seán ( anglicized as '' Shaun/Shawn/ Shon'') and Séan (Ulster variant; angli ...

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 union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

and

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

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 Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...

and association football (soccer) fans also participate in a form of kick-to-kick with the round ball.

References in popular culture

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 AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

level, which many fans find boring and compare to non-contact sports such as basketball, and

netball Netball is a ball sport played on a court by two teams of seven players. It is among a rare number of sports which have been created exclusively for female competitors. The sport is played on indoor and outdoor netball courts and is specifical ...

. This is because kick-to-kick does not generally involve any of the contesting found in an official game of Australian rules football, such as

tackling Tackle may refer to: * In football: ** Tackle (football move), a play in various forms of football ** Tackle (gridiron football position), a position in American football and Canadian football ** Dump tackle, a forceful move in rugby of picking up ...

, bumping, smothering (known as a "charge down" in rugby league), spoiling and other one percenters which often result in more unpredictable change of possession. Rock band

TISM TISM (an acronym of This Is Serious Mum) are a seven-piece anonymous alternative rock band, formed in Melbourne, Australia on 30 December 1982 by vocalist/drummer Humphrey B. Flaubert, bassist/vocalist Jock Cheese and keyboardist/vocalist Eu ...

featured a song titled "'And The Ass Said to the Angel: "Wanna Play Kick To Kick?'" on the album

Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance ''Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance'' is the debut album by the Australian band TISM. The album peaked at No. 48 on the ARIA Charts in October 1988. The vinyl version has a different vocal mix on the track, "Saturday Night Palsy", ...

in 1988.

Michael Leunig Michael Leunig (born 2 June 1945), typically referred to as Leunig (his signature on his cartoons), is an Australian cartoonist. His works include ''The Curly Pyjama Letters'', cartoon books ''The Essential Leunig'', ''The Wayward Leunig'', ' ...

painted "Street Football" in 1990. The pastime inspired a short film named "Kick to Kick" by Tony McNamara in 2000.

Auskick Auskick is a program designed to teach the basic skills of Australian rules football (AFL) to boys and girls aged between 5 and 12. Auskick is a non-contact variant of the sport. It began in Australia and is now a nationwide non-selective pro ...

in 2007 used the kick-to-kick tradition as part of their promotional television campaign, which shows kids from around the country kicking the football to each other to the tune of

Gimme Dat Ding "Gimme Dat Ding" is a 1970 popular UK song, of the novelty type, sung by " one-hit wonder" The Pipkins, and written and composed by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood. Released as a single, it is the title selection of an album which The Pipkins re ...

.Archived a
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine