Foot Tennis, Anyone? It’s Gaining a Toehold in Southland

There’s no show of hands here. Instead, it’s primarily a show of feet, but heads and bodies get a workout too.

The only equipment you need is a soccer ball and a tennis net, but be prepared to argue in Hungarian.

This is foot tennis, and if you think it’s only a silly diversion, think again. Or check out the guys who play it every Tuesday and Saturday afternoon at Waverly Park in Long Beach.

The first thing you notice is that they’re in great shape. The second thing you notice is that they take this game seriously.

Foot tennis is hard to describe, said Zoltan Toth, a foot tennis regular who also plays goalie for the San Diego Sockers professional indoor soccer team.

Toth, who defected to the United States in 1980, said the game is played on clay courts in his native Hungary, and the winners take home cash prizes. “All the kids play it,” he added, which helps explain why about half the foot-tennis regulars who show up at Waverly Park on any given Tuesday or Saturday are Hungarians.

Like Beach Volleyball

“It’s something like four-person beach volleyball,” Toth continued, “except it’s played on a tennis court with a tennis net and a soccer ball.

You don’t have a racket, and you can’t use your hands. You serve, return serve and volley primarily with your feet, although your head, chest and other parts of your body may propel the ball. Rules are similar to Ping-Pong in that the first team to score 21 wins, and the serve changes sides every five points.

The ball is usually served by kicking a line drive over the net. Then play begins in earnest. The player receiving the serve passes the ball to his teammate--one pass on the fly is allowed.

A soft pass near the net often results in a point, because the player at the net can kick the ball sharply sideways, a shot that is almost impossible to return. You can stick your leg over the net to hit the ball, by the way.

Headers--balls driven into the opposing court with the head--are common, and players often leap high to vie for the ball at the net. Colorful Hungarian expletives often punctuate arguments about whether or not a ball was out of bounds.

Toth plays foot tennis--and does almost nothing else--to stay in top condition during indoor soccer’s off-season. “This gives your muscles a workout, plus it allows you to work on soccer technique--balance, positioning, quickness, everything,” the 31-year-old athlete said.

Stays in Shape

Long Beach resident Hans Balogh, 39, likewise plays foot tennis regularly to stay in shape. “It’s excellent exercise,” said Balogh, a teacher at Downey High School. “So is running six miles and doing wind sprints afterward, of course, but that’s boring.

“This game is intense--more intense than (regular) tennis, which I also play, because the ball stays in play a lot longer. And you don’t have as much dead time between serves.”

Balogh, a native of Austria, noted that foot tennis seems to have originated in Eastern Europe, where it is still enormously popular. “They play versions of this in West Germany and Brazil, but in Hungary they have tournaments and a national championship,” he said.

But Hungarian or not, most of the players are accomplished soccer players with professional or semiprofessional experience.

Balogh played amateur soccer in Germany. Mike Toth (no relation to Zoltan), 50, a semi-retired private investigator from Long Beach and a regular at Waverly Park, formerly played in the Greater Los Angeles Soccer League.

Gus Mokalis, 30, of the Los Angeles Lazers often drops by, and so does San Pedro resident Peter Skouras, 24, who played four seasons with the San Diego Sockers and now plays professional soccer in Greece.

Out of the dozen or so players who typically show up to play, none is more dedicated to foot tennis than Tony Veee. “Tony lives and dies for this game,” Balogh said. “If it has been raining, he sometimes brings towels to dry the court off, so no one will complain.”

Veee, 51, a Hungarian native who now works as a computer analyst for General Telephone in Long Beach, conceded that he goes to work early on Tuesdays in order to get off in time for afternoon games of foot tennis. But then, he was the one who started the tradition of Long Beach foot tennis back in 1968.

Veee--whose nephew Julie plays for the San Diego Sockers--said foot tennis has been a major part of his training regimen for 20 years (he also jogs).

“The game is good for tension,” he insisted. “If you have a lot of tension, this game will get rid of it.”