Why play quidditch

So no football helmets, shoulder pads or anything of the sort. Cups are allowed, as are padded helmets. The brooms cannot be used to contact other players. Meanwhile, my strategy is to hang back and be a quarterback, call out plays, call out what I see on the pitch, tell people to pick up other Chasers, things like that. They also have to be able to catch the Bludger so they can avoid being knocked out. When they do that, it's Seeker on Seeker with a potential Beater to try and stop the opposing Seeker from scoring.

Each match has one Snitch, a person dressed in yellow who wears a sock with a tennis ball attached to the back of their waistband. To "catch the Snitch," a Seeker has to grab the ball as they would another player's flag in flag football.

The Snitch is a volunteer, and often a player from one of the teams in the match. That person is expected to be impartial in preventing Seekers from grabbing the ball. In tournament play, the Snitch is usually a person who is not on either team competing at the time.

There are also certified snitches available through the U. Quidditch association, which often is the preferred situation if teams can accommodate one for matches.

Note: Only Keepers and Chasers can handle the Quaffle. Only Beaters can handle Bludgers. Only Seekers can catch the Snitch. As a nod to the sport of Snidget -hunting, which was also popular at the time, Bragge brought such a bird to the game and released it from its cage. He told the players that one-hundred and fifty Galleons — a large sum of money, particularly in those times — would be awarded to the player who caught the bird.

This was easier said than done: the Snidget was very fast, very small, and could make sudden changes of direction at high speeds. The considerable challenge posed by the flight patterns of the bird was what made Snidget-hunting so popular in the first place.

What happened at the Quidditch game in question was rather predictable: the players totally ignored the game, and each and every one simply went off in pursuit of the Snidget, which was kept within the arena by the crowd using Repelling Charms.

A witch named Modesty Rabnott , who was also watching the game, took pity on the Snidget and rescued it with a Summoning Charm before rushing away with it hidden inside her robes. She was caught by a furious Bragge and fined ten Galleons for disrupting the game, but not before she had released the Snidget. This saved the life of this bird, but the connection with Quidditch had been made, and soon a Snidget was being released at every game.

From then, each team had an extra player — originally called the Hunter, later the Seeker — whose sole job was to catch and kill the Snidget, for which one-hundred and fifty points were awarded in memory of the one-hundred and fifty Galleons offered by Bragge in the original game. The vast popularity of the sport led to quickly declining Snidget numbers, and in the middle of the 14th century it was made a protected species by the Wizards Council, now headed by Elfrida Clagg.

This meant that the bird could no longer be used for Quidditch purposes, and indeed the Modesty Rabnott Snidget Reservation was created in Somerset to safeguard the Snidget's future survival.

The game of Quidditch, however, could not continue without a substitute. Whilst most people looked for a suitable alternative bird to chase, a metal-charmer called Bowman Wright from Godric's Hollow had a different idea: he invented a fake Snidget which he called the Golden Snitch.

His invention was pretty much what was seen on the modern Quidditch pitch : a golden ball with silver wings, the same size and weight as a real Snidget, bewitched to accurately follow its flight patterns. An additional benefit was that the ball was also charmed to stay within the playing area, removing the need for the continual use of Repelling Charms by the crowd. The Snitch was approved as a Snidget substitute, the game of Quidditch could continue, and the modern sport as we know it was complete.

All of the balls used in the modern game were now present, organised teams played against each other, and vast numbers of people came to watch. Whilst this may sound exactly like the sport as it came to be, there were still a few modifications to be made in terms of the playing pitch, and this continued to evolve until when the format of modern Quidditch pitches was finalised.

The International Confederation of Wizards' Quidditch Committee was the international body that oversaw the game of Quidditch. Quidditch pitches were typically in the shape of an oval, five-hundred feet long and one-hundred and eighty feet wide, with a small central circle of approximately two feet in diameter, from which all the balls were released at the start of the game. At each end there were three hooped goal posts of different heights, surrounded by a scoring area. As Quidditch is an aerial sport, Quidditch pitches usually feature spectator seating at high vantage points, whether in towers such as at Hogwarts or in a fully-encircling platform style such as the British stadium that held the Quidditch World Cup.

The three hooped goal posts were originally barrel-goals, introduced during Goodwin Kneen 's time. At the time of the introduction of the scoring area, they were replaced by baskets on stilts, but whilst these were practical, they did carry an inherent problem: there was no size restriction on the baskets, which differed dramatically from pitch to pitch.

By , scoring areas had been added at each end of the pitch, and an additional rule in the game, a 'stooging penalty', meant that only one Chaser was allowed in these areas at any given time, as noted in Quintius Umfraville 's book The Noble Sport of Warlocks. In addition, the size of the baskets themselves had reduced considerably, although there was still a certain amount of variation between pitches. Regulations were finally introduced in which replaced the baskets with hoops of a fixed size, and the modern Quidditch pitch was complete.

Both these changes caused a considerable amount of controversy, which resulted in riots and threats against the Minister. Quidditch pitches were built in places where they would not attract Muggle attention. This began in when the wizard Zacharias Mumps emphasised the need for anti-Muggle security while playing the game: " Choose areas of deserted moorland far from Muggle habitations and make sure that you cannot be seen once you take off on your brooms.

Muggle-repelling charms are useful if you are setting up a permanent pitch. It is advisable, too, to play at night. This was amended in , possibly due to growing popularity of the game. This amendment made the playing of the sport within one-hundred miles of a Muggle town illegal, famously worded as not to play "anywhere near any place where there is the slightest chance a Muggle is watching, or we'll see how well you can play while chained to a dungeon wall. The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy of made all Ministries of Magic responsible for the consequences of magical sports in their territories.

The Department of Magical Games and Sports was created for this purpose. Quidditch teams that flouted Ministry guidelines were disbanded. One such instance was the Banchory Bangers. The game started with the referee releasing all four balls from the central circle.

The Bludgers and Snitch were bewitched to fly off of their own accord, but the Quaffle was thrown into the air by the referee to signal the start of play This is similar to how the games of basketball and Gaelic football, popular Muggle sports, begin by the referee throwing the ball in the air.

Since the lengths of Quidditch games were variable some games could go on for days if the Golden Snitch was not caught the game was not played in periods, although captains could call for a time out. Teams continued using the same goal posts to score throughout the game. Chasers scored by sending the Quaffle through any of the three goal hoops. Each goal scored was worth ten points. Players who commit fouls face different consequences depending on the severity of the offense.

A back to hoops foul indicates that a player must stop and return to their hoops, as though knocked out. A yellow card indicates that a player must spend one minute in the penalty box. A red card indicates that a player is barred from the rest of the game. A team may not have more than four players who identify as the same gender in play, including during snitch on pitch.

The addition of the seeker does not change the gender maximum on the field. This is referred to as the gender maximum rule. USQ welcomes people of all identities and genders into our league. Any deviations from the rules therein must be clearly noted as part of that individual league's ruleset, not as part of the USQ rulebook. Article on Major Changes Released in September Rules Explainers and Clarifications. Times Store.

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