Jugger anyone?

Picture this......

Lying on the grass at New Farm Park...chatting with friends...listening to the birds chirping... watching some kids kicking a soccer ball...letting the aroma from someone else’s bbq tease your taste buds.

Talk about a relaxing Sunday afternoon. My two friends and I thought so until.....
We were casually walking through the park, soaking up some sun as we went, BUT our relaxed atmosphere was interrupted by ten people hitting each other with bats, balls on chains and giant hammers.

It sounds like we walked from New Farm to the Bronx, but I’m serious, there were people hitting each other with a decent amount of force – even kids about eight years old were running around with mini bats and swords.

It made the Le Crosse game that was happening in the next field look like a massive pansy sport – which a lot of people would say it is anyway I guess.

Alarmed by this ‘sport,’ my friends and I decided to investigate.

As we approached, a woman wielding a metre long padded, duck taped sword greeted us.
Totally amazed at what we were looking at, the questions poured out in a rather awkward and probably rude way – ‘What are you doing?” “Is this a sport?” “Are you hitting each other on purpose?”

She was extremely accommodating – not offended by unguarded ramblings.

“We’re playing Jugger,” she said, as her other ‘team mates’ welcomed us to have a go as they passed my friend Josh a trident looking weapon, which towered above him.

She explained that ‘Jugger’ originated in Germany and was a sport where five ‘warriors’ compete against each other for the ‘prize,’ which is actually a dog’s skull.

But the game was very organised down at the park. There was even a board which explained what jugger was, ‘for annoying people like us who asked what the hell they were doing,’ Josh explained. From reading the board we discovered ‘jugging’ actually originated in Germany and was inspired from the movie The Salute of the Jugger – have you ever heard of this? I hadn't either.

The sport is massive though...there’s an international Jugger tournament and major teams in nearly 10 countries around the world. They’ve got a website and everything: www.jugger.org.au

She was just explaining the sport is safe and they encourage people to play even if they’re never played. On the flyer she gave me, it actually says, “All of our weapons are padded foam, but the excitement is real.”

My friend Steph – who always says the most appropriate things – responded to her reassurance of safety with, “Yeah well I think if I saw old mate with the beard running after me with a giant hammer, I’d run drop everything and run the other direction.’

And judging by this picture....I think she makes a valid point.


So if you’re bored in two Sundays from now (their next meeting), let me know and I’ll get my sword and ball ‘n chain and we can play some Jugger.