Two years ago, Sam Osborn-Rassaby wanted to play a team sport for the first time since high school.
But he wasn’t keen enough on any sport to want to play it for a whole season.
Fun and games: Lachlan Florez (right) plays basketball for the Mystic Flames multisport team.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Players in some sports he had watched took the game far too seriously for his liking.
A friend suggested Osborn-Rassaby try multisport, in which your team plays a different sport each week.
While unusual, it has proved the perfect pastime for him. If hockey or netball are too boring or too hard, don’t worry – next week you might play handball or volleyball.
Osborn-Rassaby, 35, a youth worker and artist, now captains a team, the Mystic Flames, that plays weekly at Carlton Baths sports centre.
At a basketball game The Age watched earlier this month, a referee looked on benignly from afar, instead of hovering with a whistle, while a French rap song played in the background.
Players wore casual clothes, although the Mystic Flames have matching pink T-shirts.
Osborn-Rassaby says he likes the emphasis multisport puts on fun and being social.
Frisbee, with its “easy technique”, is his favourite sport, while he hasn’t warmed to dodgeball.
Left to right: Sam Osborn-Rassaby, Kylie Abrahams, Hugh Tabart, Renee Gonlag, Lachlan Florez and Stu McCluskey of the Mystic Flames multisport team.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Two years ago, the Mystic Flames team members were strangers, but now they’re friends.
“We go to each other’s birthdays, go out for food or play board games,” Osborn-Rassaby said.
The competition is run by the social sports company Urban Rec, whose Australian managing director, Madeleine Wilkie, brought the brand, including multisport, to Sydney from Canada in 2012.
Urban Rec now hosts 1000 multisport teams at 20 Australian venues.
Renee Gonlag plays basketball for the Mystic Flames.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Since launching in Melbourne in 2022, multisport has spread to four venues, and there are plans to expand.
Wilkie said multisport appealed to entry-level players seeking a non-aggressive environment.
“It’s very beginner-friendly,” she said. “It’s a very humbling, levelling league to play in because you’re great one week, but the next week you’re probably not so great.”
Mystic Flames player Lachlan Florez, 28, said it was like gym class at school.
“It’s kind of childlike and joyful,” Florez said. “You’re all learning a sport for the first time, a lot of the time. And so it’s got a more relaxed, playful energy.”
Teammate Renee Gonlag, 28, who didn’t grow up sporty but did ballet, said multisport appealed because it allowed her to try out different sports.
But instead of moving on to playing one sport, she now enjoys the variety of this competition.
She said she found hockey a bit aggressive and soccer was challenging “because I’m not very co-ordinated”. She likes volleyball because players get to try different roles in each game.
Sarah Cockroft, 43, said with a laugh that she was “terrible at all the sports” but liked learning new things.
She had never played basketball before playing multisport.
The lack of seriousness appealed to her, she said. “I get to meet people and have fun running around. We often collide with each other, and you laugh it off.
“I’m not brilliant at the games. It’s a lot of exercise, but it’s fun. It’s hard fun.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
