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The Sport
History
Extract from: Wikipedia
'In the fall of 1968, Joel Silver, a student at Columbia High Schoool in Maplewood, New Jersey proposed a school Frisbee team to the student council on a whim. The following summer, a group of students got together to play what Silver claimed to be the "ultimate game experience", adapting the sport from a form of Frisbee Football, likely learned from Jared Kass while attending a summer camp at Northfield Mount Hermon,
Massachussets, where Kass was teaching.The proportion of rules developed by Kass, and those developed by Silver, is disputed. It was discovered in 2003 that the game that Kass and Silver played may have been more similar to Ultimate than had been thought. Regardless, the students who played and codified the rules at Columbia High School were an eclectic group of students, including participants in academics, student politics, the student newspaper, and school dramatic productions. Key early contributors besides Silver included Bernard "Buzzy" Hellring and Jonny Hines. Another member of the original team was Walter Sabo, who went on to be a major figure in the American radio business. The sport became identified as a counterculture activity. The first definitive history of the sport was published in December 2005, ULTIMATE: The First Four Decades.'
The game
The game is described as a cross between Netball and American football because when you have the frisbee you aren't allowed to move except pivot on one foot and to score a player must catch the frisbee in the end zone. A team can have as many players as they like but can only field 7 players at a time, subsitutes happen after a point has been scored or when there is an injury on the field.
To score players must pass the frisbee between their players and catch in the oppositions end zone while the oposing team tries to intercept or knock the frisbee to the floor or out of bounds, if this happens then the oposing team gains possesion. When a team scores play then stops and each team goes to the respective end zone ready for the next point to start. A point starts when the team that has just scored then 'pulls' (throws the frisbee from the end zone they have just scored in to the opposite team in the other end zone) the frisbee to the other team. Games usually last between 45 and 90 mins depending on the tournament you are playing in and some tournaments have a point cap which means that once a team reaches a certain score the game then ends.
A major aspect of frisbee is that it is self officiated by the players (some high level ultimate has observers who can make some decisions) and with this comes the aspect of spirit which is a huge part of ultimate frisbee. Teams and players are encourage to be spirited and make fair judgements on any discussion that is raised by an opposing player. Through this self officiated and highly spirited attitude of people in the ultimate community it has to led to one of the most fun and exciting new sports that there is.
There are variations of the sport as there is indoor and beach ultimate, lots of tournaments over winter within the UK are indoor tournaments as the weather tends to be too bad to play outdoors. Both beach and indoor are played on smaller pitches with each team fielding 5 players at a time.
This was just a brief overview of the game, read the rules page to get an understanding of the rules. Here is an example of what a game is like: