Congratulations!
You are here – the website of the Australian All-Terrain Bocce League, the spiritual home of the world’s greatest game.
Based on the action comic book of the same name, the AATBL was initially a TV show in black and white. Nowadays it has all the colour of the inside of a travel sickness bag and it brings together the world’s finest exponents of a game that requires the wisdom of Solomon, the cunning of a fox, the hide of a rhinoceros, the eye of a newt, the legs of a chair and balls of steel.
There are some who will tell you that the AATBL is merely a vehicle by which a select group of men can get together to drink beer wearing baggy shorts and shirts so tatty they can’t ordinarily be worn in public. Others will lie to you.
Based in Perth, Western Australia, the AATBL plays on Sunday afternoons in a “home and away” season from February to September, about once a month.
Being a reasonably egalitarian competition, we do not discriminate against any player regardless of how distasteful he may be. We even have a member who once worked in the Department of Sport and Recreation.
Everyone will make a prediction. Some poor souls may wear self-aggrandising T-shirts. Only one will take home Glory, and that’s only because it is a soccer team what don’t got no self respect. None at all. Play a man’s game for God’s sake.
For the last few seasons, the teams have been re-cast using “the blender” at the end of each season. Players’ names are put into the blender, to randomise the teams for the following season. For more details of the current teams, see News and Teams.
After eight years of playing as a teams-based league, the AATBL changed to a hybrid format in 2021 and now plays with a mix of teams and solo players.
Although it has been suggested that playing as a singleton offers an advantage because those in teams don’t have the advantage of warming up, that hypothesis isn’t supported by the results. Also, a team need only have one player turn up to a fixture, but if a singleton misses a fixture, he forfeits it.
AATBL Season 2025 has burst open, oozing controversy down the leg of an unsuspecting sporting world. Gobsmacked, the sporting world now asks itself:
- Why would HRH Prince Andrew II choose a locus bocci in Fremantle, and then fail to turn up? Do they not recognise home-ground advantage in Freo, or are The Brandy Bunch simply taking turns?
- Will anyone score more forfeits than Big Wheelers in 2025?
- Motherchucker has leapt out of the blocks and holds top spot after Round 1. How long will it last?
- It it true that if we play within 50m of a Ferris wheel, silver cods work better than bronze ones?
- After Round 1, the league does not have another Round scheduled until 6 April (ie: no fixture in March). How much does one have to pay Reg to rig the fixtures?
Countdown to next match: