The sport is played competitively – but without referees – in parks all around Cardiff
EVERY weekend people come together to play an unusual mixed gender sport with no referee and only a single piece of equipment required.
While the game itself is far from rare, playing it as a competitve sport is less common.
It requires only a plastic flying disc to play and it is popular in the Welsh capital.
No, you aren’t officially allowed to call it frisbee.
Cardiff’s South Wales Storm are the only non-university club in Wales. They spend their weekends playing tournaments against clubs from across the UK, and they’re keen to grow the game further.
Watch our video explainer on the sport to see how it works.
Why can’t we call it frisbee?
The game of Ultimate was originally invented by American high school students.
According to this article in the New York Times, the plastic flying disc was invented by Walter “Fred” Morrison in around 1937. His invention was first called the Whirlo-Way and later the Flyin-Saucer, before he settled on the name Pluto Platter.
Later, in New England in the US, if college students didn’t have a Pluto Platter to play with, they used to throw empty pie tins instead. The pie tins were made by Frisbie Pie Co. ‘Frisbie’ was shouted as a warning to others in the area to beware the flying disc.
In 1957, the founders of Wham-O toy company bought the marketing rights to Morrison’s invention. Six months later they decided to change its name from the Pluto Platter to Frisbie – because that’s what people actually called it.
The sport can’t call itself frisbee because that word is still trademarked by toy company Wham-o, which sells official Frisbees, and is known to firmly protect its trademark from anyone who uses it with without permission.
According to the Vancouver Ultimate League, the sport itself was popularised by students Jared Kass and Joel Silver in 1968 at Columbia High School in New Jersey. They jokingly dubbed it “The Ultimate Sports Experience” and the name stuck ever since.
Want to get involved?
South Wales Storm train on Saturdays from 11am-1pm on Pontcanna Fields and their Thursday, 6pm training begins from March 27 on Roath Recreation Ground.
