Kick-to-kick is a pastime and well-known tradition of Australian rules football 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). 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. The more formal version of kick-to-kick has also often been referred to as "end-to-end footy". It has become a most popular activity of Australian footballers and in schools and local parks for many decades because it is very easy to access the game in this form: one does not have to join a formal club, few people are needed to 'kick up' a ball between them 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]. 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, the 2 groups playing at each end really only need about 50-60 metres by about 30 metres of space in which to play it satisfactorily. In most versions, the group at each end all contest against one another as individuals to mark or gain possession of the ball once someone from the other end has kicked it towards their pack or group. 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, but the contest for the ball stops as soon as someone cleanly has the ball in their possession - so that tackling, smothering and excessive bumping, etc. are not a part of the activity. In some versions, when there are three or more people playing, it could turn into a game called marks up, markers up or King of 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. 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. The ancient indigenous Australian 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.[1] 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.
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. Auskick 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 Thang (as "Gimme that thing").
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
- Nab's kick to kick competition
References
 |
This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations. |
