Three sided football: No, really.

You may think it sounds bonkers but wait until you hear the idea behind it: ‘devised by Danish Situationist Asger Jorn to explain his notion of triolectics, his refinement on the Marxian concept of dialectics’….erm come again? It unbelievably disappears up its own backside even further by purporting to deconstruct the confrontational and bipolar nature of conventional football as an analogy of class struggle. 

 

Normal football works because a man has a ball and has to stick it in the net at the other end. It simply cannot become any more difficult than that otherwise Wayne Rooney’s head would explode, and he’s only just had lovely hair implants. I get the impression that it’s not so much a game, more of a statement, however, it’s a statement with plenty of rules. Not only is 3 sided football played on a hexagonal pitch but they score in a slightly different way too. Instead of keeping a tally on the number of goals scored, each team keeps track of the number of goals conceded and the team with the cleanest sheet wins. 

 

Also the referee is seen as an 'on pitch' manifestation of the media and government and should be treated with, at best, suspicion. It may not be a total surprise that the first ever game was organised by the London Pyschogeographical Association at the Glasgow Anarchist Summer School. Quite how all this has really come about is anyone’s guess and quite how it works is even murkier still, but I get the feeling that this isn’t played by your average footballer either. The earliest games in London were played by the Association of Autonomous Astronauts, which describes itself as an outernational network promoting community. Of course it was.

 

However, if you want to check it out and live anywhere near London there is a regular game every Saturday morning at Deptford Park London SE8.