Safe Speed Forums

i hate football but top gear has given me an idea for an alternative sunday afternoons entertainment. 5 a side car football.

what you would need.
a piece of empty, flat land (200m x 150m)
2 teams of 5 scrap cars (small hatchbacks would be best) on trailers
a big football
a referee and 2 linesmen
some goalposts

we arent talking about racing so preping would be minimal as would costs. a 20 year old fiesta would be ideal. no need for tax, MOT or insurance as it would not be driven on the public roads (its gonna get banged around so i wouldnt use your everyday car). you could pick one up for £100 easy. all you need is the car to be driveable. top speed wouldnt be a factor when your pitch is 100m long although you may want to weld some side impact bars to protect the driver. other than that, everything could be stripped out. the rules would be basically, get the ball in the opposing goal. goalies would be optional. with 5 cars, the team captain would be allowed to use their own strategy which may or may not include a goalie. linesmen would observe anyone knocking the ball out of the pitch which would result in the ball being placed on the line and a team member knocking it into play with their car.
only one class of car allowed at any one time ie 3 door hatchbacks (fiestas, novas, 205s etc)


how does this sound for a bit of fun? it is intended to be cheap and cheerful hence the suggestion to bring a banger on a trailer. a couple of hundred quid should see you on the pitch. if you wanted to add a little gambling, everyone chucks a tenner in the pot which is divided between the winning team

_________________
Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

Sounds like fun, but I would imagine the same safety precautions as apply to banger racing would have to be applied.

Namely, removal of the rad and relocation inside the car
removal of the fuel tank and replacement with a bunded tank inside the car
roll over protection
proper harnesses
side impact protection.

Personally I think I'd rather go banger racing!

_________________
Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

you reckon? speed wouldnt be an issue. its not racing. i would be surprised if you could get up to 30. there would be inevitable bumps but low speed, mainly glancing blows. we are talking about 20 year old wrecks chasing a giant football around a pitch that is 100m by 50 or 60m (i dont like football so i dont know how big a pitch is). how dangerous can that be unless you get out of the car. that isnt gonna win you the game though

_________________
Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

From what I undestand, you don't go THAT fast in banger racing either...

Most of what they do to banger racers is to stop 'em exploding or leaking fluids on the track and I don't think I would partake in any form of motorsport (other thank biking...) without a full shoulder harness.

_________________
Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

[Jobsworth Mode On]

Keep Safespeed out of it. As a member of this campaign, I don't want it (or me) to get sued by the family of someone killed while playing as we "willfully promoted what we knew was a hazardous activity".

If you want to do it - fine, but not with our assistance.

[Jobsworth Mode Off]

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

im not after assistance. merely opinions of individuals to see if something like this would gain any interest. its nothing to do with this site at all

_________________
Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

Sorry, as football is a team game I assumed you were pitching for a "Safespeed Wheelers" team.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

no mate. i think the first game being spread across the uk would negate the cheap and cheerful side of it. the fuel costs would double the set up costs

im merely trying to see if people would be interested in participating in something like this if someone did arrange it in their local area. im not after people to join a team at all. if Sixy is right about having regs thrown in all over the place then i wouldnt be interested anyway. all that nonsense would take the fun out of it for me (spending money doing up a wreck isnt fun) so i wouldnt be interested if it cost more than a couple of hundred quid. the whole point is affordable and highly enjoyable

_________________
Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

It sounds like fun but I'd want to make sure I couldn't die from it.

_________________
Andrew.

It does sound like fun and I personally have no problem with an event where people go into it knowing and consenting to the risk. Shame that in these litigious, health&safety ridden days you can still get sued even if everyone signs a disclaimer so you have to have insurance and use licenced premises and so on and so forth.

If you'd mentioned it earlier, I might have been interested in joining after my old Corolla failed it's MOT (on horrendously expensive shock absorbers)

I agree that it should be kept outside of the SafeSpeed forums though. The anti's would present it as if Paul were personally advocating dangerous driving and that we were going to do this in Tesco's car park at 5PM on a Saturday or something.

again, we are talking about 10 cars within less than 100 square metres trying to get a huge ball into a goal mouth. the odd car might roll over but i think it would be more like Mr Bean and his vengeance against the reliant robin than rally crashing. i would imagine the odd bump and bruise would be the worst injury with something like this and you do get worse in actual sports. it would be more like dodgems but with a purpose. ten people having a laugh together.
for an idea of what im on about, top gear have played car football twice and ice hockey once. thats 3 episodes that give an example. if you manage to catch any one of them, you will see just what i am talking about. the biggest difference being playing with old cars instead of brand new ones

_________________
Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585