Rules
Unlike games that have now become regulated, the rules of Hailes were loosely applied and varied from town to town. The original game had no goals as we know them today but a dule or hails-line that ran the full width of the playing area. A hail was scored by driving the ball over that line. When it was played with clackens, the ball could be carried on the clacken.
Old records suggest that when the dules were fixed at a great distance apart (400 m or so), the winning team was the one that scored the first hail. After that, the game was over. Numbers playing on each team were not fixed and varied from place to place. It may have been that there was not even a requirement for the same number to play in each team.
Copies of the Edinburgh Academy Chronicle suggest that the rules of the game have changed over the years as well. Players made up rules to suit the environment. In one case, the 'goal' was a flat surface upon which the ball had to be slammed downwards using the clacken. In the Junior School version, goals similar to hockey goals were set up, though without a cross bar. In some cases, these could simply be a pile of coats. In these versions, due to the relatively short distance between the goals, a score would be kept.
The game as it is now is played annually and uses the entire school front yards. The goals now comprise two white poles set about 10 ft apart and there is a set at either end of the yards; the tennis ball simply has to pass between the two poles for a team to score a point and whoever has the most points at the end wins the games. The games has two halves of about 10 minutes each. As it is a 'celebrity' (sixth and seventh-year leavers only) game, there is a lot of off-the-ball fun as well. All players wear fancy dress and the use of water pistols and water balloons is not ruled out.
Read more about this topic: Hailes (ball Game)
Famous quotes containing the word rules:
“This is no argument against teaching manners to the young. On the contrary, it is a fine old tradition that ought to be resurrected from its current mothballs and put to work...In fact, children are much more comfortable when they know the guide rules for handling the social amenities. It’s no more fun for a child to be introduced to a strange adult and have no idea what to say or do than it is for a grownup to go to a formal dinner and have no idea what fork to use.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)
“If you do not regard feminism with an uplifting sense of the gloriousness of woman’s industrial destiny, or in the way, in short, that it is prescribed, by the rules of the political publicist, that you should, that will be interpreted by your opponents as an attack on woman.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)