Benchball is a team sport played with the primary objective of scoring by passing the ball to a teammate standing on a bench. It is played informally in schools and semi-competitively in universities in the United Kingdom. The game lacks an agreed standard, and as such many varieties of the game are played but invariably include two teams playing on a court with benches placed at opposite ends where scoring involves passing a ball to a teammate on a bench.
Benchball, as a competitive activity, is a relatively recent development within United Kingdom universities.[1] [2] [3] It is commonly used by physical education teachers as a method of introducing concepts of ball handling and spatial awareness.[4] It has also been utilised in schools by PE teachers as a substitute activity during wet weather.
The sport as commonly played in schools is typically communicated through word-of-mouth and so many different rulesets have all been called benchball. Some effort has been made in the university community to establish common rules to be used for national competitions. Each of these are played on (typically indoor) courts of variable dimensions.
One of the two competitively viable version of benchball, played by many university societies in the United Kingdom, adopts rules akin to netball. The court is set up with a single bench at each end, and two teams of eight players starting in opposite halves. One player from each team starts on the bench at the opposite end of the court to their team. The game starts with the ball thrown in the air between two players in the centre of the court who compete to knock it back to their teammates. Players can move anywhere on the court, but otherwise passing and moving rules remain the same as in netball, i.e. a player cannot move with the ball and must instead pass it down the court to their teammates. To score, a player must pass the ball to their teammate on the bench, and if successfully caught they join them in standing on the bench. The game is won when one team has scored 6 times, i.e. the entire team is on the bench except for one player.[5]
Variants of this style are played with the scorer instead swapping with the player on the bench, such that there is only one player on each bench at a time, and deciding the winner by keeping score.[6]
The other benchball variant played competitively is more akin to dodgeball. It follows the same setup as the netball-style variant with teams of eight players starting in opposite halves, and one player per team starting on the opposite-end bench. This version though is played with multiple balls, which start distributed along the centre line of the court. Players start lined up at the back line in their half and then race to the middle to collect the balls. Players are free to move whilst holding the ball but must stay within their own half at all times. As in the netball-style rules, points are scored by passing a ball to a teammate on the bench, and after scoring the passing player joins the bench. The game is won once all players on one team are on the opposite bench.[7]
Also common in schools is a version of the game with passing and moving rules similar to netball, but requiring a team to make exactly five passes before passing to their teammate on the bench. After scoring a player either joins their teammate on the bench or swaps with them, depending on rules being played.
An alternate version exists, commonly used for training rugby players. It has the same court setup with two teams and one player for each on the opposite bench. In this version players can move with the ball and travel anywhere inside the court, but possession changes hands if the ball-carrier is touched by an apposing player. The ball-carrier can pass in any direction, but can only score by moving beyond the bench and passing backwards to the player on the bench.[8]
From the mid-2010s onwards, benchball has been gaining popularity as a university sport in the United Kingdom. There is now an annual National Benchball Varsity tournament where active university benchball societies compete against each other in matches with both netball-style and dodgeball-style rules. The event is hosted and organised entirely by the societies, independent of the national BUCS competition. Current attendees include Birmingham, Exeter, Sheffield, Bournemouth and Chichester.
| Year | Winner | Host | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Birmingham | Birmingham | |
| 2020 | Sheffield | Sheffield | |
| 2021 | N/A (covid) | N/A (covid) | |
| 2022 | Birmingham | Birmingham | |
| 2023 | Exeter | Exeter | |
| 2024 | Exeter | Birmingham |
University-level benchball has been the subject of multiple articles by university news site The Tab,[9] [10] and mentioned in several others.[11] [12] [13]
The 2009 book "Cross My Heart" by Helen Slavin mentions “the wet-weather game of Benchball in the assembly hall.”[17]