Soccer Targets is a field game which can be adapted for most back yards and is best played on irregular ground rather than flat ground. It is a simple kicking game where the boys have no advantage over the girls. Physical strength, height, weight, aggressiveness are no advantage. The girls can beat the boys. Most of our games we have to create both girls and boys teams. It is our purpose to design games which are gender neutral and, somewhat age neutral. A game where a champion can be a 70 year old man or a twelve year old girl. A game of strategy and skill.
The rules are simple. We will start in mid game.
Our banner shows two targets and four balls. With four balls, you can have one to four players at each target. One person can play four people, for example.
Your opponent or opposing team would be at the other target.
Your opponent has just kicked, scored a point with the black ball. Since you can’t swing your foot toward your opponent’s target, you get “relief” on that ball and may move it to the side. If your ball ends up in the bush or near a fence, you get relief of three feet. If the ball is behind your target, you get no relief.
You kick all balls toward the opponent’s target. You get one point per “touch”. If you knock another ball into the target, one point. It is possible to score more than one point per volley.
You kick from the position the ball came to rest after your opponent’s kick.
If two balls drift together, that is a “conundrum”. You can kick both or either ball.
OUT OF BOUNDS. The game requires a boundary. Out of bounds behind both targets is about the same as the distance between the targets. On the sides it’s narrow or wide depending on the field. Out of bounds on the field shown is the wall and the flowers to the right.
If your shot goes out of bounds, you opponent has two choices, to place the ball beside the target for a “free throw” or to shoot from where it went out.
Your ball is out of bounds when the front of the ball touches the boundary (such as the wall)
Often your opponent’s shot will place the ball behind your target such that you don’t have a shot. You can try something fancy or send the ball behind a tree, or bush such that your opponent has to try something risky. The game was designed for the yard. Everything on the field that you have decided is in play.
THE MISS. The distance between the targets allows a shot (kick) that is a higher percentage shot if the ball is beside the target. You want your missed shot to allow a long shot rather than a short one. The out of bounds behind the targets determines how delicate the shot must be to not go out of bounds.
THE BREAK. Like golf, a good SoccerTargets “field” isn’t level. Like a putt in golf, your shot may have a “break” so, like golf, the speed of your kick determines how it curves.
THE WINNER. A game is won when one player reaches a score of 11 or above and is ahead by two points. The opponent must have no balls left to kick. If your final shot results in a game score of 11-9, for example, and you are playing with five balls your opponent still has five shots left. In order to win a game, you must be over 11, ahead by two and your opponent must be out of shots.
THE MATCH. At the end of each game, the opponents switch ends and start a new game. A match can be 3 or five games.
If we invited you here or you wandered in, we are shy of content now because our game is new. We want you to try it. It’s not soccer, it’s gender bender ball, the game you should try. We’d love to hear from you.