Footsie Guidelines

Guidelines for organisers of food bank footsie:

• You need a suitable venue and access to players. Playing on outside public spaces minimises costs. Try to find a level space with convenient access to parking and public transport. Parks, playing fields and tennis courts are ideal for the tennis ball version of the game between 2 cans 10m apart (to cater for overruns you ideally need a space say 14m x 7m). The metal lid version of the game is between 2 cans placed 5m apart (can be played on smaller areas say 8m x 4m but to allow the lids to glide across the surface will require very level surfaces).

• Each game will require 2 target cans (marked with insulation tape coloured rings to indicate order of play) and either 4 tennis balls or 4 tin lids (marked with coloured marker pens to distinguish each ball or lid). Either 2 people (playing singles) or 4 people (playing doubles) can play each game.

• You will need to scale up court space, target tins and balls/lids to cater for more than 4 players. For example, two courts will cater for up to 8 players and three courts for up to 12 players. When scaling up you will require more space and additional balls or lids but you could manage with just one target tin marked with coloured rings per court (you could always use a donated food bank tin as one of target tin per court). Because it is difficult to judge how many people will be playing it will be wise to have a spare set of colour marked balls or lids just in case you need to set out another court (assuming you have space).

• Colour marking the seems of tennis balls with coloured marker pens avoids the need to invest in different coloured tennis balls. If you use yellow tennis balls, you can always get away with just colour marking the blue, red and black balls (as the yellow ball is already yellow). The same applies to tin lids that can also be easily colour coded using marker pens.

• It is suggested that games are played for 30 minutes and the winner is whichever side scores the most tin strikes. Best to ask competitors to keep their own record of tin strikes. Also probably best for people to match up themselves if playing doubles. Players always need to remember that blue and black balls (or lids) play red and yellow balls (or lids).

• At the start of the match the balls are placed beside one of the tins (blue and red on LHS and black and yellow on RHS). The blue ball (or lid) always starts a match but thereafter the colour sequence is maintained (e.g. if red wins a strike then black starts the next round). At the start of each new round the balls are placed beside the tin just struck in the same colour sequence (blue and red on LHS and black and yellow on RHS). Remember that the ball next to your ball at the start of each round is your opponents ball.