bawn79 wrote:
I presume this is a different Hurling to the Irish field sport with Hurley Stick and Sliotar and 15 players aside?
From what I can gather, it IS different, but in which way I can't remember! I have a vague recollection that the Irish one is slightly more hockey-like - is this the case?
The Cornish one can have 15 players - or 30 or however many you like, I believe, as long as it's an equal number) but has the players in parallel lines opposite each other, while the ball is thrown in the middle. The players can only mark their opposite number and, by all accounts, it rapidly becomes a mass of bodies till the ball reaches it's corresponding goal, which can be marked on a pitch, or at the other end of a village, or wherever.
The teams are usually divided depending on which part of town the players are from.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/St-Columb-Major: wrote:
"Twice a year, the town plays host to a once common medieval game, but which is now only played in St Columb and St Ives; Hurling the Silver Ball. It is played on Shrove Tuesday, and then again on the Saturday eleven days later. The game involves two teams of several hundred people (the 'townsmen' and the 'countrymen') who endeavour to carry a silver ball made of apple wood through goals set two miles apart. For the Irish sport, please see Hurling Hurling ( Cornish: Hurlian) is an old sport found still in some parts of Cornwall. ... In the Christian calendar, Shrove Tuesday is the English name for the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which in turn marks the beginning of Lent... "
Sounds like a laff!
G x
