Bando (sport)

Bando is a team sport – related to hockey, hurling, shinty, and bandy – which was first recorded in Wales in the eighteenth century. The game is played on a large level field between teams of up to thirty players each of them equipped with a bando: a curve-ended stick resembling that used in field hockey. Although no formal rules are known, the objective of the game was to strike a ball between two marks which served as goals at either end of the pitch. Popular in Glamorgan in the nineteenth century, the sport all but vanished by the end of the century. Now a minority sport, the game is still played in parts of Wales where it has become an Easter tradition.

Bando is believed to have common origins with bandy. The game was first recorded in the late eighteenth century, and in 1797 a traveller en route from Cowbridge to Pyle noted 'the extraordinary barrenness' of the locality in ash and elm trees, hard woods ideal for bando bats, and came across hordes of people hastening to the sea shore to watch a game of bando. Whereas the sticks were made of hard wood, the ball, known as a "colby", was normally of yew, box or crabapple. The sport was often played between local villages, with fierce rivalries in the west of Glamorgan between Baglan, Aberavon and Margam and in mid Glamorgan between Pyle, Kenfig and Llangynwyd. Edward Matthews of Ewenni records that no-one above the age of twelve-month would be seen without a bando stick.

Although many pre-industrial games are recorded to be lawless affairs with haphazard rules, the contrary appears true with bando. Once a challenge of a game was made between villages, wagers were normally set which demanded an agreed set of rules, including the number of players, normally between 20 and 30 and the size of the playing area. Matthews records a playing area of 200 yards, with the goal markers at each end set ten yards apart. Despite a set of rules, the game was still open to violent play with players often using their bando sticks to strike their opponents.

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