NORMALLY when you see a frisbee in motion, you're lying on a sun lounger on a beach not standing on the side of a blustery Eltham playing field.

But this is where about 800 people cheered on teams taking part in the UK Ultimate's Frisbee Mixed Tour.

Held over the weekend at Coldharbour Leisure Centre, 36 teams from across the UK faced each other in the second leg of a three-leg season, with London-based What If running out winners this time round.

Ultimate Frisbee is a non-contact sport where two sides play each other on a 100m-long pitch with scoring end zones.

Games last until one team has reached 19 points with a two-point gap.

Like American Football, points are scored when the frisbee is thrown to a receiver in the endzone.

The teams are put into groups, with seeds decided from the first leg of the tour, and then play-offs decide the final placings.

To compete at the top level players need speed, agility and stamina and some professionals can throw a Frisbee 100 yards with great accuracy and speed.

Staff at Coldharbour, Chapel Farm Road, were under the spotlight as it is the first time the sport has been played there and is worth £2,500 to the centre.

General manager Sam Wright said: "The weekend typified what Coldharbour is all about as it's not the holiday camp some people perceive it to be, rather a packed sporting venue buzzing with healthy competition.

"It was also refreshing to see a virgin sport here. The sport is unique in two ways, firstly being mixed and secondly being played without a referee in sight."

The relaxed nature of the sport is reflected in the names of the teams taking part including Mild-Mannered Janitors, Curious Bacon, Under Cover Lovers, Flump and Mixed Veg.

Frisbee originated in America in the late 19th Century when William Russell Frisbie bought a Conneticut bakery and renamed it The Frisbie Pie Company.

The pies were served in tins and after eating them, students from the nearby college, which later became Yale University, would toss the empty pie tin or prototype frisbee.

Tin lids became plastic discs after the Second World War when American Fred Morrison tuned into the country's fascination with UFOs, made his flying disc and tried to start a craze.

Seeing its potential, a company called Wham-O made Morrison a proposition and the first proper production of flying discs flew into action in 1957.

However, with Wham-O's hula-hoop dominating the market the flying discs did not lift off straight away.

In 1959 the company looked for a catchier name than flying discs and when Yale students told the history of Frisbie pies, Wham-O took it on but miss-spelt it as frisbee and the rest is history.

Now, as well as casually on the beach or school field, the Ultimate Frisbee game is played in 50 countries across the world.