Stella Matutina (Jesuit School) - Stilts Game and Soccer

Stilts Game and Soccer

According to Feldkirch authorities, in the late 19. century, English students introduced soccer to the Stella, and thus to Austria. This is debatable. From 1856 on, sports at the Stella was dominated by the now defunct 'stilts game', "soccer on stilts". The stilts, usually made from wood, were relatively short. They reached "with a transverse grab handle up to the middle of the thigh ... where they were clasped with a firm grip". Arm and leg muscles were activated, by running on stilts and particularly by striking the ball with them.

• • "On the playground there was ... only a gang of savage boys who, a big stilt in each hand, fought like possessed for a leather ball. ... There were some real masters among us, at home on the stalks just as on their own legs. ... As far as I am concerned, I was soon able to overtake in a race a good foot runner, to take obstacles jumping, to hop on one stalk - the other one swinging - across the whole width of the yard." Since the stilt play "was played with fanaticism" there were dangerous wounds: broken legs, lost teeth etc. . And there were always quarrels among the players: "They hit with the stilts."

Because of these violent consequences, the stilts game was forbidden at the Stella Matutina and the "entombment of the stilts did not take place without streams of tears". The students went on strike, and the Jesuits permitted the less violent soccer version to be played. Unlike today soccer, the players were allowed to use hands and there was no referee.

Not only soccer was popular. The pride of the school was a larger than Olympic size indoor pool, which was completed in 1912, the only one in Austria-Hungary at the time. A delegation from the ministry in Vienna complained in 1912, that there is no other school in Austria with an indoor pool, not to mention such a large one. 120 years ago, ninety minutes were available in the afternoon on a daily basis for sports. The students had six large play grounds, which were converted for ice skating and hockey games in winter times.