Alternative Sports and Pastimes: An A-Z

Graham Lanceley

Nov 2016 · Book Guild Publishing

About this ebook

This book takes us through a selection of fifty alternative sports and pastimes. Some of these are activities that readers won’t have heard of, such as ‘tchoukball’. This modern sport, invented in the 1970s, based on teamwork and with the intention of avoiding collisions or injuries, takes its name from the sound of the ball rebounding from a frame.

Graham also covers more well-known sports and pastimes, such as gliding and hot air ballooning, that readers are unlikely to have participated in.

Traditional English pub games are also represented, such as bagatelle, shove ha’penny and skittles, as well as traditional outdoor activities such as falconry and morris dancing.

Hobbies, for example amateur astronomy, beekeeping, bellringing, amateur radio, train spotting, amateur geology and the related art of lapidary – or gem cutting ­– also feature in the book. Subjects range from extreme sports such as caving, jousting and paragliding to postcard collecting. There’s even a mention of Quidditch, which is now played across the world.

There is something here for all ages and abilities and all budgets as well to participate in, or in many cases simply to observe – which is often just as much fun.