Quidditch is a REAL Sport.

Yes folks, the title is correct: Quidditch, or should that be "Muggle Quidditch" so the hardcore Harry Potter fans don't take offence, is indeed a real sport and involves a bunch of boys and girls racing around in capes and goggles with broomsticks between their legs, while shooting balls through mounted hula hoops. Or to the layman: it's a bunch of sad geeky students running around looking daft playing a really rough version of wonky netball with a glorified twig between their legs and the occasional nutter (apparently he's the golden snitch) dashing across the field.

If that's not surprising enough, they have an "international" (most of the members seem to all be American) association; rules, though the WSJ notes these are changing this year to reduce the number of broken bones; official broom suppliers and even a world cup tournament in November, and it's not the first either. It's the fourth world cup.

As I'm not a Harry Potter fan, I can't say I'm too excited by the "magic" of this idea, but looking at some of the photos, I think lots of kids will be excited by this. I find it quite amusing that people would actually take a fictitious sport and turn it into a real one. Of course this does raise the question: did people have similar musings when rugby was invented?