Young players
welcome.

A game a teenager can be genuinely good at inside a season, on equipment that rewards patience over strength. Ring the club before a first visit to check what it asks of under-eighteens.

Junior coaching, by arrangement

Heyball is one of the few games where a thirteen-year-old and a sixty-year-old can play each other and neither is doing the other a favour.

It needs no strength and no speed. A handicap makes any two players competitive honestly. It rewards patience, arithmetic and standing still, which is a strange and useful set of things for a teenager to spend three hours practising. And it happens standing up, in a room, with a person, which is most of the argument on its own.

A Heyball table is hard, and that is the point rather than the problem. A young player who learns to pot into an 85 mm pocket will be a good player on anything wider for the rest of their life.

The practical part

Four things worth knowing before you plan an afternoon around it. Anything else, ring us on 0493 045 249 and ask.

Before you come: Ring and ask what the club asks of under-eighteens. It is the club’s rule to set, and it is worth two minutes on the phone.
The best time: Quieter afternoons. Nobody is waiting for the table, nobody is watching, and the light is good.
Coaching: Junior coaching on a Heyball table, and school-holiday sessions, by arrangement. Ring to ask what is running.
The counter: Tea, hot chocolate, cold drinks and hot food, ordered at the counter and brought to the table.

If you are bringing someone for the first time

Start on pool, not Heyball. A shorter table and generous pockets mean balls go in, and balls going in is what makes a first hour fun. Move to the big table once potting a straight ball has stopped being a surprise.

For organised junior competition in this state, the Billiards and Heyball Association of South Australia runs junior pathways, and a season in our league is a good way to get ready for one.