New craze for 'Bubble Football'

Each school may have had different names for the lawless game that followed, but the basic idea is that fouls are allowed and you can cheat as much as you like.

It was the green light for youngsters to start trying out the highest of high challenges, only the filthiest of slide tackles and every now and then an old-fashioned rugby tackle might happen too.

Now a new craze has come to English shores from Norway – and its a game like no other.

While capturing that 'every man for himself' game of football, this takes it to a whole new level by combining it with zorbing – the craze of rolling down a hill in a giant ball made of transparent plastic which covers your whole body.

The footballing version is however called Bubble Football – and players don a bouncy bubble over their top bodies and heads and then clatter into each other as many times as possible in the crazy game that follows.

The Goals Soccer Centre, a five-a-side facility in Cakemore Road, Rowley Regis, is now hosting games of the novel sport.

And since the centre's assistant manager Dave Challinor, who many Albion fans might know better as Baggie Bird, posted a video of the new game on the centre's Facebook page, it has been viewed more than 17,000 times.

Mr Challinor said: "We've had a great response from it – we've had so many calls from people asking to play.

"The phone's been really busy since and a lot of regulars who play here have been asking about trying it."

A group of Goals regulars tried the game for the first time last weekend – along with yours truly – who has always claimed to be more of a fan of the 'beautiful game', passing around the opposition with as much flair as possible.

And, in the most obvious turn of events, I was the one who was clattered first as soon as the game began.

To put the bubble on, players hold their arms above their heads and slide into the middle of the structure, with straps securing them in around their shoulders inside.

Due to the way the inside of the bubble is designed, while wearing it, players are held in a similar position to if they had a heavy weight strapped to their back.

The straps are over their shoulder and further bands wrap around their fists in font of the straps.

In bright sunlight, the visibility through the plastic can be a little blurry but the bubble is not weighty itself – it just makes you about four times as wide.

But the unusual thing is that players can only really see their feet – something you might think quite important when playing football – if they look straight down through the gap at the bottom of the bubble. That alone probably gives the clearest indication that this is football but not as we knew it.

The fact that the warm-up, to allow people to acclimatise to being inside the bubble, also involves a quick turn of last man standing, where everyone runs into one another to floor them – gives you some idea of the less-than-Samba football game that is to come afterwards, when a ball is actually involved.

The thing that probably takes most getting used to is what to do when you do – inevitably – fall.

A player's natural instinct is to throw their hands out but they are fixed in place by the straps around their shoulders so what actually happens is players bounce and often find themselves on their backside or the wrong way round. Then the only way back up is to wiggle onto their knees first.

Oliver Bragg, who runs his own football coaching business in schools, aged 18, tried his first game of Bubble Football last week.

He said what he liked most about it was people of different abilities could all play Bubble Football.

Mr Bragg, of Arcal Street, Sedgley, said: "It's a level playing field – and it's a great twist on football. It's full of contact which is pretty fun. Anybody could play."

His brother James Bragg, 20, and of Birmingham New Road, Tividale, added: "It's exactly like every man for himself at school." The PGCE student at Newman University, who is currently gaining experience at Summerhill School, Kingswinford, added: "I'm a student so it'd be great to take on the teachers to get them back!"

Shaun Jones is running the Bubbleballerz business with Lee Boyd, who is his girlfriend's brother.

Mr Jones, aged 25, and who works in a Geopost call centre from Monday to Friday, said he first stumbled upon footage of the game on YouTube and then sourced the bubbles from a supplier abroad.

The father-of-one added: "We've been doing it for about five weeks now and it's really popular. We've been fully booked on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am-6pm every week so far.

"What we've been doing is hiring the pitches and then travelling around so we've been playing at different locations.

"It's a good sideline for me and Lee, alongside out day jobs."

The game itself involved a series of what commentators often call 'off the ball incidents', and the player in the pound seat was the goalkeeper.

The reason why the goalie had the advantage was because, with the goal behind him, he could guarantee that any attempt to known him to the floor would come from in front. Due to the way players are strapped into the bubble, it is not so easy for them to turn their heads and spot someone charging at them from behind.

Bradley Clark, 18, and on the Kidderminster Harriers Football Academy at Stourbridge College, also tried his hand at Bubble Football.

He added: "I go some coaching at the goals centre and I had just finished when I saw they were going to have a game and I wanted to have a go.

"It's a really good laugh. It doesn't hurt, you just bounce into people and have fun."

Games cost £20 per man for one hour. The format of the game has proved so popular, Goals will now host tournaments.

For any budding players, the best tip would be wear some sports trousers to play if they are trying it at a Goals centre.

Football may be a game played by men in shorts but when that was dreamt up they weren't planning on spending most of the game on their backside, on the synthetic grass surface used by the chain.

Players might be getting knocked about more than the average prop forward, but their most likely injury would be burns on their knees from the way they have to pick themselves back up again. The game is increasing in popularity every week, with Hampshire country cricket players even trying it out as part of a their pre-season training.

Bubble Football was first broadcast by a Norwegian TV channel in 2012 - and worked as the antidote to viewers complaining about the lack of contact in the modern game and players falling over at the slightest hint of a tackle.

Football players are regularly criticised for rolling around after any contact, trying to sway the referee's thoughts into booking the opposition player who may or may not have even touched them.

The most infamous example perhaps was Brazilian legend Rivaldo, who duped a referee in the 2002 World Cup into sending off Turkey's Hakan Unsal. Unsal kicked the ball at Rivaldo as he waited to take a corner in his frustration in injury time as the Brazilians were on their way to a 2-1 win. Though the ball struck his thigh, Rivaldo theatrically fell to the floor clutching his face.

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