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Players compete during the final of the annual calcio storico series in Florence, Italy. Photo: AFP
SportOther Sport

Netflix’s ‘Home Game’: calcio storico and Highland Games among world’s weirdest sports on show

  • Netflix series profiles ‘unique and dangerous traditional sports’ from Congolese professional wrestling to Kyrgyz goat polo
  • Roller derby in Texas, Balinese buffalo racing and free-diving in the Philippines also feature, but there are plenty more for a future series
Netflix
Jonathan White
Jonathan White
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On first thought, the Scottish Highlands, the flooded rice fields of Bali and a square in the middle of downtown Florence may not seem like places with much in common.

But each is the setting for one of the unusual sports profiled in the new Netflix series Home Game.

The eight episodes take in the massive tossers of the Highland Games (a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, no less), Balinese buffalo racing (makepung lampit) and the football-meets-MMA of calcio storico.

There’s also roller derby in Austin, Texas, Kyrgyzstan’s goat polo (kok boru) and Congolese Catch Fetiche – professional wrestling with a touch of voodoo.

That is not to mention India’s pehlwani wrestling or free-diving in the Philippines, which conclude the series.

“This docuseries profiles unique and dangerous traditional sports from around the world, as well as the communities and cultures where they thrive,” is how the streaming giant describes the show.

If it is successful there are plenty more unusual local sports for them to profile.

Calcio storico is hardly the only alternative take on the world game. There’s fire football, robot football and three-sided football, too.
In Asia, they could shoot SEA staple sepak takraw, Afghanistan’s goat dragging or tuk-tuk polo in Sri Lanka. That is not to mention kabbadi.
Europe offers such unusual events as gurning, ferret legging and egg catching in the UK, plus Finnish favourite wife carrying among many others.
If the producers want something more specific, then how about the oddest of combat sports? Chess boxing, face slapping and shin kicking certainly fit that bill.
Extreme ironing, parkour diving and skyaking might be of interest to adventure fans, with many more niche extreme sports besides.
Watersports enthusiasts might find their fancies tickled by canal leaping, death diving and bog snorkelling among the world’s weirdest.
Animals feature in plenty of mainstream sports but there are also many more that are less well known. Camel wrestling, dog surfing and rabbit jumping are but a few.
Perhaps it is time to dip into the weird sports that used to be in the Olympics – and there were more than you might think. The horse long jump, town planning and live shooting of both people and pigeons probably deserve a half-hour show to explain themselves.
These are all food for thought – as are the food-based sports of cheese rolling, bun climbing and competitive eating.
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