Wallgame

A vicious combination of football and edificeering played only at the Assassins' Guild school to a set of local and impenetrable rules. Or at least, enshrined in tradition and impenetrable only to outsiders who have no idea of the value of tradition.

It is best thought of as football with an added vertical dimension. Apparently a former pupil revolutionised it by using his hands to pick the ball up and then running with it. He was whipped to within an inch of his life (these were more robust times) and then expelled in disgrace. The moral of the story is do not mess with time-honoured rules, however bizarre.

Annotations

A combination of Roundworld referents - to the Eton Wall Game (a bizarre public school game played by toffs and unintelligible to most) and to Rugby Union, famous for the (apparently apocryphal) story of William Web Ellis (whose name is now synonymous with the Rugby Union World Cup) who is often credited with the invention of running with the ball in hand in 1823 at Rugby School when he allegedly caught the ball while playing football and ran towards the opposition goal.