The Ball by John Fox Page A

the festivities: the New Year’s Ba’. The whir of drills and rapping of hammers echoed across town as homeowners and shopkeepers erected heavy wooden barricades to protect their windows and doors from the violence of the pack.
    My first stop in town was at the home of Graeme King, ba’ player and 1998 champion and, at the age of 47, an emerging elder statesman of the game. A big, barrel-chested Viking of a man, Graeme’s girth was nearly double my own. With a crushing handshake, he welcomed me into his sunken living room, where a fire burned next to a highly flammable-looking artificial Christmas tree. Gathered together were two other former champions—Bobby Leslie (’77) and Davie Johnston (’85), who’d been chosen to throw up this year’s ba’ in honor of the 25th anniversary of his win. Also in attendance was George Drever, one of a handful of craftsmen who painstakingly make the ba’s each year.
    All four, I quickly learned, are Doonies through and through.
    â€œRight,” asked Graeme before we’d even had a chance to sit down, “which way did you enter Kirkwall?”
    â€œWell, let me see . . .” I recalled, tracing the route in my head. “I took the road up from the ferry landing and then came past the airport and . . .”
    Davie sprung up from his chair. “Door’s that way!” he shouted in mock disgust. “Now you’re walking home!”
    â€œNow hold on,” said Graeme, as though arguing before a court. “He was in a car the whole time. More important is where you first set foot in Kirkwall.”
    â€œWell . . . that was at the B&B down on . . . Albert Street,” I answered nervously, confused by the inquisition.
    â€œSafely in Doonie territory!” declared Graeme with relief, slapping me hard on the back.
    Once seated, Graeme explained that on ba’ day everyone—players, spectators, outsiders, foreigners—is either Uppie or Doonie. It’s not something you get to choose. You don’t put it on or take it off like a team jersey. It’s predetermined. If you’re a local, affiliation is a matter of where you’re born. If you’re an outsider, it depends on how you enter Kirkwall for the first time in your life. Post Office Lane is the dividing line. Between that line and the shore you’re a proud Doonie; between there and the head of town you’re stuck being a godforsaken Uppie, forever.
    â€œOnce you’ve tied your colors to the mast,” Graeme said, “there’s no going back. You can’t say, ‘Oh, I think I’ll be an Uppie this year.’ You are what you are for life.”
    I had apparently, by sheer luck of having chosen the right accommodations on the Internet, been spared a fate worse than death.
    The origin of the Uppie and Doonie division is believed to date back eight centuries to the founding in the 12th century of St. Magnus Cathedral, the spectacular Romanesque structure that marks Kirkwall’s town center. At that time the town was co-ruled by the Norse earls and the bishop of Orkney. Everyone who lived “down-the-gates” ( gata being the Old Norse term for road) between the cathedral and the shore was considered a vassal of the earl. Everyone who lived “up-the-gates” above the cathedral was a vassal of the bishop. Over the centuries, a deep-seated rivalry emerged and identities hardened around which part of town you were born in. One of us—or one of them.
    It’s not hard to imagine that this may not have always been just a friendly rivalry. Violent clashes between the two groups, if they indeed occurred, would have threatened the order and stability of the small island community. In this scenario, the ba’ may have come about as a way to settle conflict and work out differences without suffering the damages of petty wars.
    In the tribal divide between Uppie and Doonie we