IT may not be the best-known sport in Scotland but it is said to be gaining in popularity.
Now the head of the country’s most northerly ultimate frisbee team wants to set up a northern league to cater for a growing number of teams.
Susan Szymborski chairs Highland Fling, a Frisbee club based in Inverness, which has been in existence for around 15 years, and she says more and more people want to play it.
For the uninitiated, ultimate frisbee is a non-contact activity which is played by two teams indoors through the winter months and in outdoors in summer.
It takes place on a field roughly the size of a football pitch and it said to be a cross between American football and netball.
“It is a little-known sport,” admits Szymborski, “but it is getting bigger all the time.
“It’s big in America and it has come over to Europe.
“The game tends to be associated with lots of universities and most of the Scottish unis have ultimate frisbee teams.
“We are quite unusual in Highland Fling because we are more of a pub team – one of the few – and are not affiliated to any university at all.
“So we are more just a group of friends who meet every Sunday to play.
“We are the UK’s most northerly Frisbee team and we are of all ages, all sizes and all occupations.”
She added that all you need to play is a group of people and a Frisbee: “There aren’t many barriers to getting into the sport. You have two sides who compete against each other – indoors it’s five-a-side and outdoors it’s seven-a-side.
“Also, outdoors it’s on a football-sized pitch, so anyone who thinks it’s not as hard-core as football is completely wrong. It’s much harder than football.
“It’s a mix between American football and netball in that the object of the game is to throw the frisbee to your team member to catch it in a cordoned-off area at the end of the pitch. When you do that it’s a point scored.
“If you drop the disc, or the other team intercept it, they can keep it and try to score from there.”
Apart from being a non-contact sport, Szymborski says there’s a strong emphasis on team spirit, which means no… referee.
“There are no referees or umpires, so if you foul it’s considered ‘proper’ to own up to it and play with good team spirit.
“Being 5ft 3ins tall I know all about team spirit because I play against people who are up to 6ft 6ins, so I make sure there’s no contact at all – I keep well out of their way.”
There are thought to be around 20 teams in Scotland, although some universities may have first and second teams, and so on.
Szymborski says some school pupils are even taking it up.
“It’s being taught in some schools now as well because it is mixed and non-contact so it’s easy to get into, so hopefully we’ll see a lot more teams coming up in future.
“We at Highland Fling have been involved in helping out at various summer activities in the past and we’ve been in competitions down in the central belt, in Holland, England and even a beach tournament in Aberdeen.”
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