Comments on: How to Play Paper Football

By: Gareth

Gareth — Sat, 18 May 2013 13:23:24 +0000

Extremely late but thought I’d throw my hat into the ring with a relative of this game.

Paper Rugby is played with three of the same coin – we used 1p coins, but I would assume that the American penny or anything similar would work too.
Alternating possession, you arrange the three coins into a triangle with all touching one another at your end of a table – like in “Paper Football” – with the point of the triangle (so one coin rather than two) facing you.

You then flick the coin nearest to you to separate the three out. The aim from there is to flick the furthest coin back between the other two as if like a slalom course. If you missed, wherever the coins fell would be where your opponent would start from in the “triangle” formation. If you made it, you kept going until you could get one into the last inch of the table – which formed the conversion zone.

Knocking a coin off the table turned over possession from wherever it fell in the middle of the table’s width, or if off the opponent’s end from a similar starting position to the kickoff.

If you managed to score, you could attempt a conversion as in the rules of rugby. Not too dissimilar from the rules above – “thumbs together, pointers up” for the posts, wherever you scored plus a few inches back for where you took it from. However it was flicked off the thumb so that when you’d finished the “kick” it was as if you were giving a thumbs up. 5 points for a “try” – getting it into the “end zone”, 2 points for a successful follow-up conversion kick. Play until bored or caught by teach’.

There was some alternative rules I picked up from others: some played trys that were on the edge of the table only like in Paper Football, some added in penalties for various offences – touching the wrong coins, blocking a shot, because you could, etc. – that was just like taking a conversion kick, except you got 3 points for getting it in.

By: JPritch

JPritch — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:17:07 +0000

So our company is in this penpal partnership program with a local elementary school. We meet with our penpal monthly and eat lunch with them. Supposed to talk about books and stuff, but for our next meetup I’m gonna introduce the kid to paper football! Hey, there is an element of math to the game! The teachers and lunch room ladies are going to hate me.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:20:22 +0000

We used a pair of dice when we played. One white, one red.
Roll a 6 on red, fumble, opponent got the ball at that spot, roll a 1 on red, interception, opponent got the ball, 2 ball widths towards his goal. Roll 2 -5 not a turnover.
White die – roll a 1 or 4 had to flick towards left side of field, 2 or 5 center of field, 3 or 6 right side of field. Played 4 downs, started at edge of table. on 4th you could go for touchdown or field goal.

yeah we made the rules a little more interesting, but we got bored easily…

By: JDL

JDL — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:39:38 +0000

Played this all the time in study hall, along with penny soccer.
The trick was getting the football a little dirty to make it slide right.
We also played 6 pt. TD’s, 1 pt FG’s, the 3 strike rule, and kick-offs from the edge. I thought those were universal, but clearly they aren’t.

Good memories!

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 09 May 2010 12:12:48 +0000

I teach students who are at risk of being expelled from school due to consistent inappropriate behavior. On Friday afternoons, in order to reward those who had good behavior for the week, I have an activity period with a movie and other things as a reward. On one of these Friday afternoons, two of the boys in my class were bored with the movie and I suggested playing paper football. After a game or two it caught on like wild fire and the boys were drawing up tournament brackets and perfecting their football making skills. It continues to be a favorite. It is great because it requires the students to use appropriate social skills and at times they have to resolve differences in an acceptable manner without resorting to violence and inappropriate language.

By: St John

St John — Sun, 02 May 2010 04:38:05 +0000

In primary school, I played the same game as Mark described. The only exception is we play rugby in South Africa, not football. So we had tries (5 pnts) and conversion (2 pnts). Good times. Since I am in college, I think I am going to revive this past time.

By: Henry A

Henry A — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:26:07 +0000

We never played up to any point total. We preferred using the clock instead, playing anywhere from 5-10 minute games. Our rules were basically the same as everyone else’s with a few exceptions. Touchdowns were 6 pts. and afterwards you were given an opportunity to kick an extra point. However, when in school, be it in class or during lunch, we had an alternative way of kicking extra points. We would hold our hands flat on the table at the edge, palms down, and thumbs facing each other. The person who scored would merely hit the ball down the table into the goal. This was to avoid disrupting other people nearby. You were also given an opportunity to go for 2 pts. after a touchdown as well. We would lay the footdown down flat at the end of the opponent’s table edge and fold it over 3 times (or however many both players agreed on), and then attempted to make a score from there. We also had the opportunity to score a safety when kicking off, if it landed as a touchdown. The only difference was that instead of the ball going over to your opponent, you were given the opportunity to kick off again and possibly score another safety. We would oftentimes score up to 2 or 3 safeties consecutively. Everything else (the 3 offs giving the fieldgoal opportunity), and the rulers for determining a score were also used. Paper football is a great way to pass the time away.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:22:51 +0000

All,

Glad you enjoyed the post and the memories came flooding back for some of you.

My study hall was 50 minutes, but we only played to 15 points to get in more games that way. We had anywhere from 5-10 guys all playing. We did have some guys who liked the more complicated rules, but I’m a K.I.S.S kinda guy. It was fun with or without the more complex rules (and it beat doing my math homework).

Jason

By: mike d

mike d — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:13:39 +0000

The rule we used was there was no kickoffs. You just start off at the 0, and have 4 downs to score. A touchdown was 7, no extra points, though you could kick a field goal on 4th. Going over the edge meant either start in the same spot and lose a down or an automatic turn over.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:35:18 +0000

This is a great game to play at a restaurant. Just don’t kick the field goal too hard or you’ll hit some innocent little kid.