Rules
The major Frisian handball tournament, called the P.C. (short for Permanent Committee), is the oldest regulated sports tournament in the world. The P.C. is yearly held in the city of Franeker since 1854.
Frisian handball is played on a rectangular lawn of 61 meters by 32 meters, by two teams composed of 3 players. In the center of one short side of the field is a receiving zone of 5 meters by 19 meters defended by 2 players, the other team member remaining field player. One of the opponents serves the hard leather ball with his bare hand from a serving box at about 30 meters from the receiving zone. If he does not succeed in reaching the receiving zone, the receiving team gets a direct score. When the receiving team, of which the players are allowed to wear a single hardened leather glove, returns the ball over the short line behind the serving box (called the upper line, in Frisian boppe) they also get a direct score. Of course, the serving team is allowed to prevent this happening by hitting or holding the ball before the upper line. The place where the ball remains after such a rally is marked with a small woodblock called a kaats, which is best defined as an undecided score. When two such undecided points occur (or one, if one of the teams is on game point) the teams change places. In the next rally, the team that then has the receiving position, tries to hit the ball past the first kaats and, if any, in the next rally past the second kaats, so deciding the undecided points. Then they start all over again.
In parts of Belgium, the similar game of jeu de pelote is played. This game is played by teams of 5 players on a trapezium shaped field, mostly located on marketplaces.
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Famous quotes containing the word rules:
“Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;
To copy Nature is to copy them.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints—the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk—we think we’re using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we’re its slavish agents.”
—Harry Mathews (b. 1930)
“As no one can tell what was the Roman pronunciation, each nation makes the Latin conform, for the most part, to the rules of its own language; so that with us of the vowels only A has a peculiar sound.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)