WHILE the rest of Scotland is opening presents, munching chocolates or sitting down to a Christmas feast tomorrow, the hardcore men and boys of Orkney will be trying to avoid broken ribs in their annual pursuit of The Ba’.
Held on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, Kirkwall’s Ba’ games are a remnant of mass football games and date back centuries.They are not for the faint-hearted.
As “soothmoothers” decorate their houses with fairy lights, the people of Kirkwall put up wooden barricades to protect their buildings from the surge of hundreds of bodies.
Injuries are commonplace and the games can last for hours as the leather ball is chased up and down the streets until it is a victory either for the Uppies or the Doonies, their names derived from “Up-the-Gates” and “Doon-the-Gates” from the old Norse word gata for a road.
Some form of mass football has been practised throughout Scotland for at least three centuries but the Kirkwall tradition may date back even further with its roots in folklore based on historical narrative Orkneyinga Saga and the tale of Norse hero Sigurd.
GROUNDSKEEPER WILLIE
THE side an individual plays on in Orkney depends whether he was born “up or doon the gate” – in a Simpsons episode Groundskeeper Willie claimed he was from Kirkwall and his parents were from opposite sides.
“It split the family,” he lamented.
It is perhaps an indication of how well known the game has become that it merits a reference in the Simpsons – although Willie’s claim should be taken with a pinch of salt as he was portrayed as hailing from the Loch Ness area in an earlier episode.
However, while visitors are welcome to join the crowds watching the game, “adventure tourists” are not encouraged to take part as they are unaware of the dangers and allegiances.
Orcadians born in hospital in Aberdeen or at the Balfour on the edge of town are brought home by a circuitous route to favour their family’s allegiance.
TOLLS
THE Boys' Ba’ for the under-16s begins first with more than 100 boys, aged from five upwards, often taking part. In 1985 the game lasted a mere four minutes but it is more likely to go on for several hours – in 2007 it was a five-hour marathon.
Often more fluid than the men’s game, it can be ended decisively by one of the faster boys making a break for the goal.
The Men’s Ba’ is thrown up from the Merket Cross when the bell of St Magnus Cathedral tolls the hour of 1pm. It’s pounced on by a waiting scrum of up to 350 men who heave and push until the ball moves up or down the surrounding streets.
The Uppies, as the name suggests, have a hard push upwards to their goal opposite the Catholic church, the site of the old town gates, while the Doonies' goal is at the harbour – the ball must reach salt water for a win.
The streets are narrow and if play gets stuck in one of the closes it can last for hours with the game ending only when one of the goals is reached. The Ba’ winner is decided by the winning team and the honour generally goes to a player who has played well over several games. He takes the Ba’ home and is supposed to throw a party open to anyone who has played.
With no official rules, the game does have a code of honour which is usually kept although such is the force of the scrums that cracked and broken ribs are not uncommon.
It is a male event although there have been two women’s games on Christmas Day 1945 and New Year’s Day 1946. They involved more running than pushing and shoving but were deemed too unladylike to continue.
PARTY
IT may seem counter cultural but playing a ball game on Christmas Day is more in keeping with recent Scottish tradition than the current frenzied food and drink fest.
It is true that before the Reformation there was a holiday and feasting on the day in common with the rest of Catholic Europe but a 1640 Act of the Parliament of Scotland abolished the “Yule vacation and all observation thereof in time coming”.
The abolition was subject to much disapproval from south of the Border with one English clergyman stating: “The ministers of Scotland, in contempt of the holy-day observed by England, cause their wives and servants to spin in open sight of the people upon Yule day, and their affectionate auditors constrain their servants to yoke their plough on Yule day, in contempt of Christ’s nativity. Which our Lord has not left unpunished, for their oxen ran wud, and brak their necks and lamed some ploughmen, which is notoriously known in some parts of Scotland.”
Christmas Day only became a public holiday in 1958, and Boxing Day in 1974. Until then Hogmanay was by far the largest celebration but perhaps because of the relentless advertising and hype generated by the consumer society it is now as big a holiday in Scotland as the rest of the UK. Or, as Groundskeeper Willie would probably not say, any excuse for a party.
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