Keepie uppie facts for kids

A footballer playing keepie-uppie

Keepie uppie, keep-ups or kick-ups is the skill of juggling with an association football using feet, lower legs, knees, chest, shoulders, and head, without allowing the ball to hit the ground. It is similar to Kemari, a game formerly practiced in the Japanese imperial court.

Notable performances and records

Here is an incomplete list of keepie-uppie performances.

Longest keepie-uppie

• The men's record is held by Daniel Macrooni of England, a 25-year-old professional freestyler, who kept a regulation football aloft for 26 hours using just his feet, legs, shoulders and head; he completed the feat, which took place in Hong Kong, in June 2010.
• The previous men's record was held by Martinho Eduardo Orige of Brazil who kept a regulation football in the air for 19 hours and 30 minutes using only the head, feet and legs. The feat was accomplished on August 2 and 3, 2003.

Fastest marathon while doing keepie-uppie

• The fastest marathon while ball-juggling was completed by Abraham Muñoz in the México City Marathon, August, 2016. He completed the distance of 42.195 km in 5 hours 41 minutes 52 seconds, without the ball ever touching the ground.

Longest distance walked while doing keepie-uppie

• Dan Magness, holder of the longest keepie-uppie, is also the holder of the longest distance gone while doing keepie-uppie. He managed to go 30 miles (48 km) without letting the ball touch the ground. He achieved this feat on January 26, 2010 in London and in the process visited all the stadiums of the five Premier League teams in London. He started his journey at Fulham F.C.'s Craven Cottage and ended it at Tottenham Hotspur F.C.'s White Hart Lane.

Longest keepie-uppie while on one's back

• Daniel Bolt of Mytchett FC, Surrey, England kept a regulation football in the air for 21 minutes and 14 seconds while on his back, using only his legs on 22 July 2008.

Most touches overall

• Milene Domingues (a Brazilian model and former women's footballer, also the ex-wife of renowned striker Ronaldo), is noted to have registered a total of 55,198 touches in one instance, and thus holds the record for 'longest keepy uppie' if measured by the number of touches accumulated.
• Imogen Papworth-Heidel set herself the goal of achieving 7,1 million touches, one for every essential worker in the UK and performed 1,123,586 over a period of 195 days to raise money for charities. The remaining 5,976,414 touches were "donated" by roughly 2000 people sending in videos, including professional football players from Manchester United.

Most touches in 60 seconds

• The most touches of a football in 60 seconds, while keeping the ball in the air, is 274 by Isaac Wood of Australia, set on 25 October 2017 in Melbourne, Australia.

Anecdotes

One of the more famous displays of keepie-uppie was in the 1967 Scotland–England football match, where Scottish midfielder Jim Baxter juggled the ball for some time in front of the English defence, taunting them by keeping possession. This allowed Scotland to keep possession and use up the remaining few minutes, leading to a 3–2 victory for Scotland over the world champions. "That's a defining moment for almost every football fan in Scotland irrespective of where their club allegiance lies," said football historian Bob Crampsey.