Three-sided Football returns to New Cross

Tomorrow (Sunday) sees the return of three-sided football to Fordham Park in New Cross with a new season under the auspices of Deptford Three Sided Football Club.

If you've never tasted the delights of the three-sided game, check out this recent Vice article 'The world's most anarchic, hectic sport':

'In keeping with the anti-authoritarian spirit that gave birth to the sport, the rules of 3sf are few, and considered more as guiding principles than steadfast laws. In general, the game should involve a ball, three teams and a hexagonal pitch – anything beyond this is subject to spontaneous revision. Unlike conventional football, a team doesn't win by scoring the most goals, but rather victory is predicated on how few goals a team concedes to its opponents'.

(the article actually credits me with a small role in relaunching the sport - as well as describing me somewhat dubiously as an artist - but the credit must go to Mark Dyson and the other players who have made Deptford/New Cross the global centre of the game!)

A special Midsummer Game  was held at the setting of the sun over the Hilly Fields Stone Circle on 21st June.

If you want to check out the game, and maybe even join in, come to Fordham Park tomorrow (by Deptford Green school) at around 1:30 for a 2:00 pm start. As well as Deptford Three Sided Football Club, teams participating include Strategic Optimism FC, Philosophy Football FC and New Cross Irregulars.

(see previous 3-sided football reports here - including the Association of Autonomous Astronauts 1998 match on One Tree Hill)

Fordham Park Three Sided Football on BBC

Deptford Three Sided Football Club has been covered here before, starting off in Deptford Park and now playing on the first Sunday of every month in Fordham Park, New Cross (all welcome). Also have recalled the earlier  1990s Association of Autonomous Astronauts games on One Tree Hill and elsewhere.

Last week the game was featured on BBC News in a series on 'new trends that are beginning and old traditions that are coming to an end':

'It seems like a typical Sunday afternoon game of football, but there's a big difference - there are three teams on the pitch. Deptford 3S Football Club is playing Philosophy Football FC and Strategic Optimists FC, at the same time. This is the complex and curious game of three-sided football, an invention of Danish Situationist philosopher and artist Asger Jorn. Played on a hexagonal pitch, the rules are similar to normal football, but it is the team that concedes the fewest goals, rather than scores the most, that wins.This leads to all sorts of tactical subtleties, as BBC News discovered at a match in New Cross in London'.

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Deptford win Three-sided Football Tournament

Well done to Deptford Three Sided Football Club for their victory in the Asger Jorn Memorial Tournament in Regents Park on Saturday. At least I think they won, on the basis that they conceded the least goals in a rotation of teams that also included New Cross Irregulars, Polish team Polscy Budowlancy and two teams from Philosophy Football. There's a full report in The Guardian.

Asger Jorn was the Danish situationist artist who first conceived of the three-sided game, introduced into Britain by Fabian Tompsett and collaborators in the 1990s.  As reported here previously, the Association of Autonomous Astronauts played the game at One Tree Hill, Kennington Park, Hyde Park and other locations in the late 1990s.

Regular matches are held in Deptford Park, all are welcome to take park. Check out the Deptford Three Sided Football Club website for more information or email them at info@3sf.org.uk

Three-sided Football Pitch

Deptford X 2012

I'm out of town for the first week of Deptford X, but suffice it to say that there's a lot to see and do at this year's contemporary art festival - full programme here.

Couple of events I am sad to be missing, but you don't have to:

Walking In The Footsteps Of Deptford’s Jack In The Green
Wednesday 1st Aug 11am - 4pm, starting out at Utrophia in Deptford High Street.

'David Aylward’s Rediscovered Urban Rituals, Ancient and Modern, Real and Imagined, Present this event. A talk, walk and the making of a collaborative improvised soundtrack to a experimental film that was produced to illustrate a mayday in Deptford 2006. No musical experience needed, although feel free to bring any small instruments. You may like to bring comfortable footwear'

Three-sided football tournament- Deptford Psychogeographical Association 
Saturday 4 August, 11 am in Fordham Park, New Cross

'Three-sided football (3SF) is a variation of football with three teams playing on a hexagonal pitch. It was devised by the Danish artist Asger Jorn to explain his notion of triolectics, a refinement of the Marxian concept of dialectics. Jorn wrote several essays during the late 1950s and early 1960s elucidating the concept but, as he admitted himself, struggled to define his concept using the written word. By providing the example of three-sided football, Jorn felt he was better able to give meaning to the flavour and texture of the triolectical method.

While it is not known whether Jorn ever participated in a real game of three-sided football, a number of games have been played and recorded by psychogeographical groups over the last twenty years. Some of the participants in these early experiments came together in 2011 to found a Deptford Three-Sided Football Club, and games have been held bi-monthly during 2012 to develop the tactics and strategies of the game.

The three-sided football tournament proposed by the club for Deptford X is intended to bring together creative protagonists from both the local area and across Europe who are interested in exploring the interaction between sport, art and non-linear game theory'.

There have been a number of three-sided games played recently in the local area, including in Deptford Park and on Goldsmiths green in March (the latter part of a project linking Millwall's community scheme with Goldsmiths MA in Art & Politics students). The games's situationist origins are interesting, but you don't have to worry about them, it is actually just fun to play a game where the winning team is the one that concedes the least goals (not the one that scores the most). More details at Deptford Three-Sided Football Club.

More Three-Sided Football

I really enjoyed the three-sided football in Deptford Park last weekend - note the red, yellow and blue tops of the three sides all on the pitch at the same time - with three goals. Some serious playing, with a cross section of Saturday morning park players and post-situationists. Dangerous business when your brain tells you you're still 18 and your body has other ideas.

Next match is next Saturday 6th April, 11 am - all welcome. Regular reports/updates at South East Central, I gather there was also a match planned earlier this month at Goldsmiths, so the 3-sided game seems to be taking off round here. Get involved!

Three Sided Football and the One Tree Hill Astronauts

Mentioned here recently that three-sided football was about to take off once again in South London with a game in Deptford Park. Apparently it went well, as Mark reports:

'Post first match report. I am very happy to say that the inaugural game went ahead and went very well. We kicked off with three a side and played three ten minute thirds with scores of 4:3:2. Only nine men on a full size 3SF pitch was a bit exhausting as there was much distance to cover but the forming and breaking of alliances which lie at the heart of the game were very much in evidence. It was fascinating to see how different the ownership of goals became though all of us clearly have the rules and tactics of traditional footie locked in our DNA. More games will clearly be necessary before the full essence of this amazing game begins to be properly experienced. Deptford Park also houses two normal football pitches for traditional Saturday morning games and our activity generated much interest.

After our short three sided game we were joined by players from the other pitches and proceeded to play another game but with five players per team over three twenty minute thirds with scores of 7:6:5. This was quite different in feel; much less exhausting and with fixed goalies but the exigencies of two sided soccer exerted themselves more noticeably. It was also clear that inter-team communication of shifting allegiances needed to be better explained as sometimes half of one team were playing with/for the second team while the other half were playing with the third. Very confusing...  All in all an excellent experience and everyone has committed to playing again. We have set up four more matches; March 10th & 24th and April 7th & 21st. Everyone welcome'.

So please note, next match is this forthcoming Saturday at 11.00am in Deptford Park - all welcome. The basis of the game is that the 'winner' of the three teams is the one that concedes the least goals, which encourages all kinds of shifting alliances.

There's some discussion at South East Central. See also some information at wikipedia and this video primer.

The Astronauts of One Tree Hill

Back in the late 1990s, three-sided football games were held in London and elsewhere as part of the training programme of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (AAA), an outernational network promoting community-based space exploration which declared 'technology is developed by the military and intelligence agencies as a means of controlling their monopoly on space exploration; economic austerity is manufactured by the state to prevent the working class building their own spaceships; governments are incapable of organising successful space exploration programmes. WHAT WE NEED TODAY IS AN INDEPENDENT SPACE EXPLORATION PROGRAMME, ONE THAT IS NOT RESTRICTED BY MILITARY, SCIENTIFIC OR CORPORATE INTERESTS. An independent space exploration programme represents the struggle for emancipatory applications of technology'.

Denied access to rocket ships and space stations, we decided to use the means at hand for acclimatising ourselves to liberated life in zero gravity - raves in space, astral projection and three-sided football, the latter to get used to thinking beyond two dimensions (there is no up or down in space).

In October 1998, as part of a series of events entitled 'radical? Southwark!' we held an 'AAA training mission' on One Tree Hill in Honor Oak. A procession of cyclists set out from 56a Info Shop (by Elephant and Castle) to take part.

There was an astral projection exercise on the  concrete platform (site of the old anti-aircraft gun) on top of the hill - basically getting people to use their imagination to visualise being in space. And in that flattish clearing  half way up the hill we had a game of Three-Sided Football. I remember that some curious passers-by joined in (a feature of the game whenever it is played), as well as a couple of BBC researchers who were thinking about making a programme about the AAA. They never did, though we did make it on to the Robert Elms radio show.

Back of 1998 flyer - some poetic licence perhaps - the Battle to save One tree Hill
from enclosure as a golf course certainly happened; Blake's visions were on Peckham Rye,
but in those days One Tree Hill would have been seen as the far end of the Rye; the Boudica
legend is shared by many places, no real evidence the battle took place here; I haven't
been able to substantiate the Aleister Crowley story either (though he did marry
the Vicar of Camberwell's daughter).

Here's a short film about the AAA, including some historic three-sided football footage (not the Honor Oak game unfortunately)

Three-sided football

Sure football's fine, but don't you sometimes get tired of the two-sided game? How about giving three-sided football a go? I have actually played this a few times, but I will leave recollections of the legendary Association of Autonomous Astronauts game on One Tree Hill for another day.

But how do you play it? What are the rules? Well it's all quite simple, just turn up tomorrow morning (Saturday), 11:00 am  in Deptford Park and you can find out all about it. All welcome. 

(update: see report of match here):