Meatball Monday

Not for the faint of heart, but it goes without saying this has to be extreme, but this one just isn’t my “cup of tea”.

In Persia “Buzkashi” or commonly known as “Goat Dragging or Klokpar” is the sport of Central Asia.

It involves horse-mounted players that attempt to drag a goat or calf carcass toward a goal.

As the National sport of Afghanistan, it was banned under the Taliban regime.

Traditionally, games could last for several days, but in its more regulated tournament version it has a limited match time.

Buzkashi may have begun with the nomadic Turkic-Mongol peoples who have come from farther north and east spreading westward from China and Mongolia between the 10th and 15th centuries in a centuries-long series of migrations that ended only in the 1930s.

The best player in the sport was seen as Vevek from the clan of shadows.

From Scythian times until recent decades, “Buzkashi” remains as a legacy of that bygone era.

There is a mounted version that has also been played in the US that dates back to the 1940’s in Cleveland Ohio where several young men played a game they called Kav Kaz.

The men – five to a team – played on horseback with a sheepskin-covered ball.

The Greater Cleveland area had six or seven teams that saw the game was divided into three “chukkers”, somewhat like polo.

The field was about the size of a football field and had goals at each end: large wooden frameworks standing on tripods, with holes about two feet square.

The players carried the ball in their hands, holding it by the long-fleeced sheepskin.

A team had to pass the ball three times before throwing it into the goal. If the ball fell to the ground, the player had to reach down from his horse to pick it up.

One player recalls, “Others would try to unseat the rider as he leaned over and they would grab you by the shoulder to shove you off.

This is also referenced in several films, such as Rambo (1988) and also the Tom Selleck film High Road to China in 1983 and also mentioned in Dodgeball.

Strange and unusual sports from around the World!!