RULES
Each bokklechuk team comprises fourteen players: three chuckers, four duckers, one chain up specialist, one ragman (or woman, as the case may be), and five old alcoholics, because somebody has to empty the bottles to be used for game play.
The playing surface is to be a minimum 100 metres by 20 metres, selected by the two or more teams involved in the bokklechuk contest at game time.
The middle fifty to sixty metres of the playing area is to be occupied by the spectators of a Buju Banton concert performance.
Play begins when the first team’s old alco squad consumes the contents of four cases of local beer or stout, and carries the cases of empties to the preferred end of the playing area. When the other team takes up position at the other end, the first team gets first chuck.
Chuckers chuck bottles at the oppsong teams, attempting to hit duckers for six points and other opposing chuckers for three points. Ragmen are required to stop any bleeding within five minutes of initial injury or give up a further two points to the opposing team. Striking a ragman earns the chucking team twenty four points, but also invokes the wrath of Moko and as such is an inadvisable course in game play.
Teams earn one half of a point for each bottle that their chain-up specialist can encourage Buju audience members to chuck at the opposing team. If players of the opposing team are struck by a chained-up chuck, normal point calculations apply as above additional.
Players earn one point for any chuck that is caught and returned. Should a return chuck strike a player on the opposing team, normal point calculations apply additionally.
Play ends when both teams run out of chuckable bottles, when the Police break up the assembled gathering, or when Buju declares one more time that he not coming back to do another performance in Trinidad and Tobago.
Commentary from the first bokklechuk regional championship follows:
“And there’s the man with the fourteen karat smile that they call Sandpaper Block from behind Bournes Road… he’s got good height and turn on that one, and OHHHHHHHHH! Right across the grill of the Westmoorings Wanderers’ number 3 ducker, Blazer, for the full six points!”
“That’s right, Jim. And two more if the team matron, Sister Beverley, can’t get that cut closed up.”
“I heard that they drafted her all the way from Charlotteville in neighbouring Tobago for her knowledge of herbs and bushes, guys.”
“That’s true, Bob. And her opposite number is a former nutsman named Freddie who I understand had done great work for two other bokklechuk teams using crocus bag pieces, salt and leftover nuts shells. But let’s watch Sister Beverley do her stuff…”
