---
title: "Pinball"
description: "Everyone guards a tall cone of their own and tries to knock over everyone else's with a few shared balls: leave your cone to hunt, or stay home and guard it?"
canonical: https://hobbit.football/drills/pinball
language: en
publisher: Hobbit (https://hobbit.football)
---

# Pinball

> Everyone guards a tall cone of their own and tries to knock over everyone else's with a few shared balls: leave your cone to hunt, or stay home and guard it?

U4 to U12 · 6 to 10 players · 20 × 20 m · 12 min

Also called Jumpers, Headers, World Cup.

![Diagram of Pinball](https://hobbit.football/api/game-library/diagram/pinball)

## How to play

1. Mark a 20 by 20 metre square. Every player stands a tall cone or a skittle somewhere in it, at least 4 metres from the next one. Up to ten players to a square; with more, set up a second one.
2. The coach rolls in two balls, or three with nine or ten players.
3. Guard your own cone and knock over anyone else's with a pass or a shot. Feet only, and nobody holds a cone or stands right over it.
4. Knock a cone over and you score a point. Its owner stands it back up straight away and plays on: nobody is ever out.
5. A ball that leaves the square is brought back in by the player whose cone is nearest. Play rounds of two to three minutes; between rounds, everyone moves their cone to a new spot of their own choosing.

## The decision it trains

Two balls, eight cones, and every child has two jobs at once. So the look comes first: where are the balls, whose cone is unguarded because its owner has gone hunting, and is anyone heading for mine? Leaving your cone to chase a ball gives you a chance to score and leaves your own open; staying home keeps it safe and scores nothing. With the ball, the choice is a long shot at an empty cone now, or a few more touches to get closer while someone closes you down. The best target is often the cone of the player chasing you, because to chase you they had to leave it. A cone that falls costs a point, not a place in the game, so the brave shot is always worth trying.

## Make it harder or easier

- **Too hard:** if cones hardly ever fall, add a ball, or put four discs round each cone, 1 metre out, as a circle nobody may enter.
- **Too easy:** if cones fall all the time, take a ball out, or spread the cones further apart.
- **Next step:** play in pairs. Each pair guards two cones and may pass to each other, so the two have to agree who hunts and who stays home.

## What to ask at the breaks

- "When did you leave your cone, and what did you check before you went?"
- "Which cone did you aim at, and why that one?"
- "How did you know your cone was in danger?"

## Where it comes from

Several sources document it, each in its own way. Sport Australia's football lesson plans for primary schools (Years 3 to 6) and Football Australia's Multicultural Youth Program guide both call it Pinball, with a skittle or a cone for every player. The Swedish FA's Skolbollen folder for schools calls it Pinnboll. US Youth Soccer's collection of backyard games has it as Jumpers, everyone guarding a target of their own round a circle, and as Three Team Cutthroat, three small teams each guarding one. AYSO's Kickstart programme manual plays it in pairs for four year olds as World Cup: one partner guards a goal, the other hunts. No source names who created it.

## Documented by

- AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization) (United States): World Cup
- Swedish FA (Sweden): Pinnboll
- US Youth Soccer (United States): Jumpers, Headers, Three Team Cutthroat
- Sport Australia (Australia): Pinball
- Football Australia (Australia): Pinball

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