About the Author

Greetings all and thanks for dropping by! My name is Tiffany and I’m a 28 year Londoner. Not your typical pelota writer you might think. I’ve been aware of the existence of the wonderful Basque game of pelota mano for many years but it was only a year or so ago that my passion for it took off. I’ve always followed a huge variety of sports (football and boxing being the glaring exceptions) and strangely, it was my other major sporting obsession, cycling, which led me to pelota. For several years as I’ve sat watching the Tour de France and other such races, I’ve been amazed by the passion of the Basque fans, creating a huge sea of orange atop the Pyrenees. At some point I suppose I asked myself who these people were and what made them so patriotic. That curiousity led me on a fascinating journey through history, geography, anthropology, literature, language, art, cuisine and culture. Owing to my natural sporting leanings, it was only a matter of time before Basque sport met with my radar. There is a vast array of traditional games in this rugged and beautiful land, from log cutting to stone lifting but it was pelota which captured my imagination, and despite the speed and excitement of cesta punta, or jai alai, the variant which holds the distinction of being the worlds fastest ball game, it was pelota mano which fascinated me. In towns and villages the Basque Country over, rock hard balls are smacked towards the walls of courts, churches and houses and on the professional frontons men with hands as hard as stone do the same for the glory and adulation of the masses. For me, there is no sight which sums up the Basque country better than the pelotari in full flight, and no sound more evocative than the thwack of the pelota against the stone.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no other English language pelota websites in existence. I feel like something of a pioneer. Many of my articles are reports of matches broadcast on ETB-Sat, the web channel of the Basque broadcaster. I collect other material from the Basque press, and the websites and press releases of the empresas (ASPE and Asegarce), though due to an embarrassingly basic knowledge of Spanish I rely more than I would like on translation tools. I am currently attempting to learn Basque, though it will be quite some time before I am at all conversant!

I hope you enjoy what I produce. It is my sincere wish to spread the message of pelota far and wide and if I can create a handful more fans I will have done my job.

All the best,

Tiffany

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