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 the ancient game 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.
With AATBL season 2026 now gathering speed and dominating the world’s sports news once again, the world asks itself:
- Were the gloves used by Serge in Round 3 legal all-terrain bocce kit?
If so, will they be confer as much as benefit as those thongs seemed to provide to the player once known as “Reg”, all those years ago? - How is our Beast of Bourbon, BoB, adapting to his new moniker?
- With Beastly Justice now perched atop the ladder, could it be that the gloves and the new BoB moniker have injected some vim into the lads?
- The Singularity has been the only beneficiary of a forfeit so far this season. Who will be next? When will this blatant corruption end?
- Will Eurovision inspire passionate renditions of team songs at Hyde Park in Round 4?
- If it does, will Brad write a whiny letter to the local paper, complaining about the noise and unseemly behaviour?
- After Barney’s embarassing behaviour in Pemberton last year, can we expect an AATBL road trip in 2026, or will WAPOL intervene?
Countdown to next match: