Gridball
1957
Everything you didn't think you wanted to know about Gridball
Gridball is completely fictional, but almost every aspct of the game has been dictated by a highly complex series of randome number generations. Almost everything, right down to the team kit colours are decided by the Random Number Generator {RNG}
What is Gridball?
Gridball is a fictional women's seven a side team sport played with a lightweight half sized Baseball styled bat and a lightweight ball slightly larger but similar to a Tennis ball.
How is it played?
Two teams of seven players have four quarters of fifteen minutes each in which to score goals through a 3m diamater circular goal that sits 1m off the ground on a frame.
How does a Grid come into it?
The Grid, also known as th court, is the playing area, which is 48m long and 25m wide, making it slightly smaller than an Ice Hockey Rink. The game can be played indoor or outdoor and teams home courts can be Grass, Clay or Cement of similar quality to a Tennis court outdoors, or any smooth hard court surface for indoor teams.
The court is marked off into eight zones, 6m each in length. with goals and shooting zones at each end. Teams can pass forwards to any zone but can't pass backwards out of the zone they're in. They can pass inside the same zone but the ball must leav the zone and move forwards within twenty seconds. If the attacking team spend more than twenty seconds in one zone, they surrender possession to the opposition. This most commonly happens in the shooting zone and is called a turnover.
How do teams pass?
The ball is slightly larger than a Tennis ball, but of the same style. Players pass the ball using a bat similar but about two thirds the normal size of a baseball bat. A pass can be caught in the hand or hit with the bat. If caught, the catching player cannot move until they bat the ball. They can hold the ball for up to a maximum of two seconds before they must release it.
The area of play is known as the Grid and the zones of the Grid are numbered 1-8. One team defends a goal in zone one and attacks their opponent in zone eight. When a player wants to move play forwards into a new zone they can either bat the ball off the court at least once and then hit it forwards with the bat, or try to dribble themselves into the next zone. Dibbling must start with the ball being bounced off the court at least once but playr will then usually hit the ball in the air off their bat and run after their own hit. They cannot catch thier own hit but they can hit it to a tem mate who can catch it.
Opponents must try to intercept a pass, bounce or dribble, they cannot physically tackle or touch their opponent, to touch the playr in possession of the ball incurs a free hit to the attacking team, unless the umpires deem the attacker ran into the opponent.
If the ball goes outside the sids lines of the court, the umpire gives posession to the team that did not hit it out and a bat in taks place from the zone where the ball was last hit. This prevents teams trying extravagant long passes, which could give possession to their opponent high up the court if the pass misses.
How do teams score?
Teams can only score in zones 1 and 8, which are the respective shooting zones. Once the ball reaches the shooting zone, the attacking team has twenty seconds to try and score before surrendering posession to the defending team. A shot must be hit with th bat. Only a netminder [number 1] can touch the ball with their body. They don't use a bat and instead are padded, using any part of their body to try and stop the ball. If a shot deflects off an attacker's body and goes into the goal, the score doesn't count. However if it deflects off the body of a defender it gets marked as an own goal. The goal itself is a 3m diamater circular frame situated 1m off the ground. The back of the frame has either a net which catches the ball to confirm it has gone inside the frame. If an attacking player is fouled inside the shooting zone they're awarded a dead hit from the four metre line. This is a line running four metres from the goal, along the shooting zone. Dead hits take place on th line closest to where the foul took place.
What is the makeup of the teams?
Each team has seven players:
1: Netminder - heavily padded and the only player on the team not armed with a bat.
2: Left Guard - Traditionally the more defensive and taller of the two defenders She will take responsibility for stopping th opposing attacker being given opportunities
3: Right Guard - The defensive who will track the opposing attacker. Left and right are their starting positions but during a game they will switch to follow the opposition forward line.
4: Defensive Centre - increasingly referred to as a sweeper. Sits in front of the defence in centre court and disrupts the opposition Centre
5: Centre - Often the key player in the team who forms the main link from defence to attack
6: Attacker - Usually a fast paced and skilled dribbler who can get control of the ball to set up scoring opportunities
7: Shooter - An accurate batter often with th skill to hit the ball first time without having to catch it. Although anyone in the team can score a goal, it's their principal job.
Both teams can field an entire seven reserves on the sidelines, but can only change one player during the game.
What is the makeup of the tournament?
Each team is a franchise, invited to take part. They're known as senior teams. Only senior teams can play in the World Championship. Games take place every other weekend with the senior teams playing in national competitions, which include junior teams in the weeks in between [this element is not recorded or documented in Gridball and is for narrative only]
Each year twelve new teams are invited to join th senior ranks and between them, they host a qualifying competition to reduce the numbers down to twenty-four teams. the format for this tournament changes every season with the changing numbers of entrants. Only the twenty-four teams that finished in th top three in their First Round group the previous season are exempt from having to qualify. Qualification takes place between January and March every season.
The twnety-four qualifiers join the twenty-four auto qualified teams in one of eight groups, which are played in a round robin. Every team plays host to their five opponents. A First Round group is made up of one of last season's quarter finalists, a team eliminated in last season's second round, a team that finished third in one of last year's First Round Groups, and three qualifiers. This format can deliberately lead to very uneven groups in terms of strength. This is to offer a better chance of lesser teams getting through to the Second Round.
Th top two in each First Round group progress to the Second Round. Teams earn 2 points for a win and 1 point for a scoring tie. However no points are awarded if a game ends scoreless and if a team wins by five or more clear goals they earn a bonus point at their opponents expense, taken as a penalty point.
In the Second Round the two group winners and two group runners up are ach placed into four groups. Teams from the same First Round group are kept apart. Tams who met in qualifying are also kept apart if possible. The format is the same as the First Round with just six games and the same points format.
The four group winners have home advantage against a Runner Up, with teams that hav already met being kept apart if possible. This is a straight knockout ti with sudden death xtra time if scores are tied. The Semi-Finals are neutral. The winner of the Final is declared Champion.
If this is fictional, how is it actually decided?
Almost all aspects of the game are decided using random number generation. This is the format from top to toe.
Picking teams
Every year twelve teams are selected to become senior teams in the game. The first thirty-fiv teams were selected from the UK & Ireland. From that point on, the nations that entered Miss World five years earlier have been included as potential Gridball nations.
When a team is selected, the nation on the list with the largest population in the most recent census in game time is awarded a franchise. From 1951-1955 the population of the area being represented could not exceed 2 million people. The team took it's name from a town, city, county, etc with a population not less than 150,000 people.
From 1956 this has been increased to 2-3 million for the area to be represented with the team name coming from a place of no less than 250,000 people. This results in team name changes and some teams disbanding or merging as time goes on. In 1965 the numbers will again rise by 1 million and 100,000 repsectively and will continue each ten years.
Team nicknames
Nicknames are one of the few things not decided by RNG. These are selected by trying to pick a name that could genuinely have been picked if Gridball existed.
Team Colours
Hundred of colours are in a RNG and one is paicked for each team and then removed so no two teams have exactly the sam colour. RNG then also dictates if the team has a secondary colour, tirtiary colour ect. Styles are taken from real local Soccer teams of the era