The Viability Of Three-Sided Football Played On A Hexagonal
Pitch As A Competitive Sport.
By Dr Pinky
The experiment was performed in association with the Easton
Cowboys & Cowgirls FC, The Cube Microplex and a selection
of random strangers.
Abstract
Three-sided football played on a hexagonal pitch has been much
hailed by anarchists and situationists. The purpose of this
experiment was to try the format on subjects who regularly play
football at an appreciable level. A method for easily marking
out an equilateral hexagon pitch is described. The match was
played with 6 players in each team and consisted of three 20
minute thirds. 1 and 2 ball versions were tried. The results
were very encouraging, with the subjects unanimously reporting
that they enjoyed the competitive nature of the game as well
as the tactical and psychological nuances. The match is assessed
and recommendations for future games are made.
Introduction
Three-sided football appears to have been invented by the Dutch
philosopher Asger Jorn to challenge Marx's Dialectic Materialism
- the idea that society is driven forwards by the struggle between
the haves and have-nots [1].
Critics of football say that it is a struggle between to two
opposing teams mediated by a referee who clams to be neutral.
In the Marx analogy the referee represents the government, claiming
to be doing the best by everybody. These critics go on to claim
that three-sided football is a truer sporting representation
of social reality. Supporters of the three-sided format say
that it represents trialectics - "a trinitarian super cession
of the binary structure of dialectics" [1].
They also claim that three-sided football challenges the homophobic
nature of the two-sided game.
The London Psychogeographic Association seem to have organised
the first game at the Glasgow Anarchist Summer School in 1993.
There are a few other records of games including a review of
a game organised by the Association of Autonomous Astronauts
that happened in East London [2].
However, much of what else is write is confused by references
to Luther Blisset.
This is what the Association of Autonomous Astronauts have
to say about the rules [2]:
The pitch is hexagonal each team being assigned two opposite
sides for bureaucratical purposes should the ball be kicked
out of the play. The blank side is called the front side. The
side containing the orifice is called the backside, and the
orifice is called a goal. Should the ball be thrust through
a team's orifice, the team is deemed to have conceded a goal
- so in an emblematic fashion this perpetuates the anal-retentive
homophobic techniques of conventional football whereby homo-erotic
tension is built up, only to be sublimated and repressed.
However the trialectic appropriation of this technique dissolves
the homo-erotic/homo-phobic bipolarity as a successful attack
will generally imply co-operation with the third team. This
should overcome the prominent resistance to women taking their
full part in football.
Meanwhile the penetration of the defence by two opposing
teams imposes upon the defence the task of counterbalancing
their disadvantage through sowing the seeds of discord in an
alliance which can only be temporary. This will be achieved
through exhortation, body language, and an ability to manoeuvre
the ball and players into such a position that one opposing
team will realise that its interests are better served by breaking
off the attack and allying themselves with the defending team.
Bearing in mind that such a decision will not necessarily
be immediate, a team may well find itself split between two
alliances. Such a situation opens them up to the possibility
of their enemies uniting, making maximum use of this confusion.
3-sided football is a game of skill, persuasion and psychogeography.
When the ball goes out of the play on the frontside, a throw-in
is conceded. This is carried out by the team whose frontside
it is, unless they had last touch. In that case the throw in
is taken by the team whose goal is the nearest. When the ball
goes out of the play at the backside, the defening team has
a goal kick, unless they had last touch, in which case a corner
is taken by the team whose goal is nearest. The semicircle around
the goal functions as a penalty area and it may be necessary
to use it for some sort of offside rule which has yet to be
developed.
It can be seen from this description that the pitch is set
out as shown in Figure 1 and that throw-ins and corners are
allocated as described in Figure 2.
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| Figure 1. The hexagonal
football pitch. |
Figure 2. The allocation of throw-ins
and corners, according to the Association of Autonomous
Astronauts, when team a has last touch1. |
Because goals are conceded and not scored the team that scores
the most goals might not win, the team that concedes the least
will. This has some very interesting permutations.
For the sake of example let us consider a game played between
three teams 1, 2 and 3. If team 1 concedes first, teams 2 and
3 are likely to gang up on them to try and put them out of the
running. Let us imagine that teams 2 and 3 put four goals past
team 1. Team 1 will probably approach one of the other teams,
let us say team 2, and negotiate: "We can't come first
but we can come second if five goals are put past team 3, in
which case you will win we will come second and team 3 will
lose."
Thus, the game continues. Because the negotiations happens
during play it may not be clear to all the members of a team
what the alliances are at any particular time. Each player must
be aware of what is happening.
Those who have read 1984 by George Orwell [3]
will notice the similarity between three-sided football and
the ever changing alliances between the three world powers:
Eastasia, Eurasia and Oceania.
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Experimental
Apparatus
- 3 x 5ft by 4ft goals
- Approximately 210 m of thick string
- 6 x corner flags
- 1 x cricket stumps
- 2 x truncated training cones
- 2 x footballs
- 18 x football players
Marking Out The Pitch
It was decided to make the Hexagon's side length 40 paces (about
35 m) long. This length corresponds to just less than half the
length of a good full-sized pitch.
A piece of string (string 1) 40 paces long was measured out.
This was then used to measure out two other pieces of string
80 paces long (string 2 and string 3). Each 80 pace piece of
string then had a loop tried at its mid-point (Figure 3). The
central loops of string 2 and string 3 were secured to the cricket
stump which had been placed at the pitches centre.
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| Figure 3. The allocation of string
ends. |
Figure 4. Pulling string 2 and string
3 taut. |
Four people (α, β, γ and δ) each took hold
of one end of either string 2 or string 3, as shown in Figure
3. α and β also took hold of one end each of string
1. α and β then moved outwards until all three sections
of their string (AO, BO and AB in Figure 4) were taut. By the
laws of geometry AOB had formed an equilateral triangle. γ
and δ then moved to pull their halves of string 2 and string
3 taut and to insure that AOD and BOE were straight lines. α,
β, γ and δ marked the position of their respective
string ends with corner flags. Thus, four of corners of the
hexagon (A, B, D and E) had been found.
α held onto the ends of string 1 and string 3 and move
to estimate point F. β dropped the end of string 2 and
moved to give the end of string 1 to d (Figure 5), while d stood
still to receive it. Once δ had the end of string 1 α
moved so that EO, FO and EF were all taut. Point F was then
marked with a corner flag. The final corner (C) was found when
γmoved round, still holding string 3, to make COF a straight
line. C was then marked with a corner flag.
An equilateral hexagon ABCDEF had now been formed. The cricket
stump was removed and a truncated training cone placed at the
pitch's centre. The goals were placed at the mid-point of every
other side. The string was then used to mark the hexagon's edges
(note that an additional 40 pace piece of string is need for
the sixth side). The finished pitch is shown in Figure 6.
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| Figure 5: Finding the last two corners. |
Figure 6: The completed hexagonal pitch. |
The Rules Played
The format tested used three teams, each consisting of six
players; 1 goalkeeper and 5 outfield players. The match consisted
of three 20 minute thirds and the teams moved one goal clockwise
around the pitch at the end of each third. There were no goal
areas marked and the goalkeepers were allowed to move from their
lines. The match was started with out a referee, and since it
progressed well in this manner, no referee was used throughout.
The rules of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (see
Introduction) sate that each team has a designated touchline
(the Frontside) on the opposite side to their goal line (the
Backside, see Figure 1). The throw-ins and corners are then
designated as shown in Figure 2. However, during the game it
seemed more intuitive to award throw-ins and corners to the
side who did not have last touch and who's goal was closest
to the point at which the ball went out of play. This method
is illustrated in Figure 7.
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Figure 7. The allocation of throw-ins
and goal kicks used when a has last touch. |
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Throw-ins were taken normally and goal kicks were taken as
placed kicks, from hands or thrown.
The match and each subsequent third were started with all of
the players behind their respective goal lines and the ball
placed on the truncated training cone at the centre of the pitch.
On the start signal the players were free to move into the playing
area. After a goal was scored the match was re-started with
a goal kick by the team that conceded.
As stated in the Association of Autonomous Astronauts' rules
the conceding team was awarded 1 point and the scoring team
awarded no points. The team with the least points at the end
of the full 60 minutes was judged to be the winner. Since the
score at the end of the match was 0-1-1 it was agreed to play
an added 10 minutes with two balls in play at once. The winner
was then judged to be the team with the least points; even if
they had the most points at the end of normal time.
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Results And Discussion
The pitch proved very easy to mark out using the method described
above. Also, they size of the pitch turned out to be well suited
to six-a-side teams. However, the same sized pitch could easily
accommodate a seven-a-side match. The use of corner flags proved
essential, since they made it ease for the players to check
their orientation at a glance. The results from the match itself
were encouraging with the subjects unanimously reporting that
they had enjoyed the game.
It had been expected that two teams would gang up against the
third however, this did not last for long periods of the game.
Alliances tended to work while attacking but not while defending
and it was crucial for a player to decide how far away from
their goal they should be before passing to an ally. Since two
teams tended to attack and one defend, dribbling on the main
part was futile because of the plentiful passing options.
Team orders concerning alliances also seemed futile. Most players
assessed the merit of an alliance moment by moment and quite
often passed to the enemy at the expense of their ally, only
to be forgiven almost immediately as possession changed.
Due to the small size of the goals (8 ft by 4 ft) the scoring
was not prolific. At the end of the 60 minutes normal time the
score was 1-1-0. Therefore 10 minutes of extra time were played
using two balls. This format was frantic and produced many more
goals and the final score was 3-2-0. However, the subjects reported
that they did not find playing with two balls as tactically
fulfilling as playing with a single ball, although it was agreed
that this was a good method for playing extra time.
Conclusions
- Three-sided football on a hexagonal pitch can be played
as a competitive sport in its own right, and has subtle tactic
and psychological nuances.
- An equilateral hexagon pitch with a side length of about
35 m is suitable for a six-a-side or seven-a-side match and
corner flags are essential.
- The 8 ft by 4 ft goals proved too small.
- The two ball version is not as satisfying to play but is
suitable for extra time.
Further Work
Another game of three-sided football is definitely warranted.
The game should be played with larger goals. Also, goal areas
should be tried whereby no out field player is allowed into
the area and the goalkeepers are not allowed to touch the ball
outside the area.
Reference
1. www.deepdisc.com/space1999/archive/11.html
[Return To Text]
2. www.deepdisc.com/space1999/archive/18.html
[Return To Text]
3. Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell,
Penguin, 1949. [Return To
Text]
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