Old street Sports

[winduppers]

Can anybody mind playing games in the summertime school holidays like Kerby when they were younger?

Kerby involved bouncing the ball off the opposite kerb 1 point if you did it and 2 points if you caught the rebound and the first one to ten won.

 

Any other games remembered please post.

[crofter]

Knifey. Except we used to play it at school as well.

[Njugle]

^ Knifey was good. I'm no sure I ever really understood the rules, but it was still good.

 

Squash - with football on any suitable wall (must have driven neighbours and parents nuts)

 

Squash with tennis ball, same principle but very different game, unfortunately without the same level of torture on parents and neighbours

 

Squash with punctured tennis ball on fire and full of petrol - Much higher stakes and cause for parental avoidance. Not good for clothing - short lived.

 

"Three and in" fitba based goal scoring for unlimited number of brats, three goals and you were goalie.

 

 

"Kick the tinny" - Fantastic strategy based game/reason to invade neighbours gardens and work general devilment.

 

Turd fights - with abundant sheep and pony turds, rural equivalent of gang warfare. I'm not proud, it was 'de rigueur'.

 

[JohanofNess]

Played knifey a couple of times til a fellow cub scout almost stabbed his father in the foot.

 

Really isn't a street sport but used to play British Bulldog a lot, not the pussy version where you got tagged but you had to be pinned and dragged out of play. Think most schools have banned it which is a shame.

 

Wally, two touches, one to control and one to kick it off the wall, played that a lot with my brother much to the disdain of our crotchety neighbour.

 

Heiders and volleys, only score with a header or a volley while inside the 18 yard box (if you have one)

 

World cuppies, first person to score is through to the next round, last person at the end goes in goal until you get down to the last two players and the first person to score in the final wins.

[EM]

Thinking back, the game which stands out as being particularly weird is "best man at dying." This involved all but one of the "players" standing in a line (often on a wall for extra dramatic possibilities). The other guy was both the eventual judge as well as "executioner." Each would then, in turn, act out some kind of death scene as if in a cheesey action film. Each would say which technique they wanted, such as "bow and arrow," "machine gun" etc. The winner was whoever was deemed to have been "best man at dying." He then took over as judge/executioner and the whole thing repeated. Despite the gruesome nature, it was at heart just simple informal amateur drama, and tended to result in outrageous amounts of over-acting. Quite funny.

 

 

^ Knifey was good. I'm no sure I ever really understood the rules, but it was still good.

Interesting point. I always thought that it suffered from having useless rules, so maybe I didn't understand them either. As I remember there were two versions, a one-on-one as well as another group version similar to the "best man at dying" line-up. Common to both versions was the throwing of a knife into the ground to the side of the foot. If this was valid (stuck in and not too far from the foot), the player had to move their foot to this new point. Eventually the player fell over. The useless aspect lay in the criticality of the validity distance, so there were inevitably many dubious decisions.

 

And yes, whatever they say about knife crime, stats on kids carrying knives can only have decreased because we almost all used to have them, even at school. I don't remember any real guns at school, though Basil Wishart was infamous within fedder's generation for having shot another kid's eye out with a gun.

[mr_brain]

trippy-ups... basically run around and slide tackle someone to the ground, was good fun until someone got their leg broken....

[shetlandpeat]

Kerby involved bouncing the ball off the opposite kerb 1 point if you did it and 2 points if you caught the rebound and the first one to ten won.

 

I used to play that down Goodlad Cres., every day nearly with me mate James. The kerbs were good and high then and we used to get many a twoos, now, they have surface dressed the road so many times it only allows for too many oners, you would have to be good to get a twoos now. See safer roads but crap Kerby score, oh, there were only a few cars then, now u cannot see the kerb..

[Longdog]

We called knifey 'knacker stretch' for obvious reasons. And yeh one of my mates got it in the foot once, but it was OK cos another mate happened to have a plaster on some sort of old cut so took it off to put on the fresh cut

 

Kick the can, basically hide and seek but if some one not caught could kick the can the rest were released.

 

British Bulldogs of the violent kind

 

Kerby

 

Tig , on or off the ground.

 

Pile up, basically all jump on some one until they cry or everyone felt too guilty to carry on squashing them

 

Tunnel of Death, basically make a tunnel against a wall and some daft sod would try to get from one end t the other while the 'tunnel' kicked you know waht out of them.

 

Follow my lead type games.

 

Tig/follow my leader were usually in and around disused mine buildings just to add fun!

 

All sorts of other daft ventures one bikes, with rope swings and making throwing arrows etc..., wonder we ever survived!

[Trow87]

3 an in, Cuppy, Kerby, Wally, Catchie, Tip/Kick the can, Block (very similar).

 

we played "best man at dying" as well, but withoot ony kinda official judge, it was joost up ta da group ta decide.

 

british bulldog, chuckie-off-the-hill (exactly whit it says on da tin!) an headers an volleys were school favourites, til da first pair were banned!

 

we also played (?) rugby, an what we caad "murderball" which wis basically a combination o aussie rules, rugby an fitba. it wis kinda weird an didna really catch on!

 

dere wis a time when we aa got inta wrestlin an aa, an we even made a ring in da garden oot o aald fence posts an bits o ropp. good fun, til wan o da bboys got drapped on his head, an wisna allowed ta wrestle ony mair...da rest o wis, bein an inclusive bunch decided it wis likly fir da best an da ring wis dismantled afore lang!!!

 

happy days...

[nautim]

We used to live opposite the fire station (or at least where the fire station was...). Someone invented a game called 'drains' - I can't remember all the rules, but it was a bit like dodgeball combined with rounders. You stood in front of the middle door while someone threw a ball at your legs - if they hit you, you ran from there to each drain along the front of the concrete forecourt in turn.

 

We also had a lot of fun swinging from the ropes the fire brigade conveniently provided from the tower thing for drying hoses on. When you were little the older children wouldn't let you run right round the station on the wall because there was a higher bit at one corner.

 

The West Dock aka the Skibbidock was interesting, but we never went on peoples boats. There were lots of back roads and paths between garages and sheds to cycle along - and lots of puddles to splash through, much to my mothers annoyance.

 

We did get told off one day for trying to climb up the outside of the cooling tower at the ice factory, but what we should have been told off for was finding carryoots hidden between the sheds, emptying them out, then putting them back. Somehow or other it never occured to us to try any of the contents! I've often wondered what the owners thought had happened to their drink...

 

In the other direction the Coonty Garage provided lots of open trucks to play in and snow ploughs to slide down. When they changed the route of the north road to go through the garage grounds we lost that source of amusement, but by that time we were getting a bit bigger and were going a bit further afield to play.

 

The thing I'm very conscious of having forgotten are all the rhymes we had for skipping, french skipping and playing with a ball. There seemed to be a natural season for each type of game, but all that seems to have disappeared now - bit of a shame really but I'm sure that bairns invent new (better?) games to supercede what I remember.

[Njugle]

^ Lots more happy memories, but EMs mention of what we called "Best mans dead" set me off: We played that for years, great game! Steep slopes, snow drifts, the sea and the swimming pool all saw great variations of it.

 

Fantastic over acting, very funny, everyone was into it.

[piggywiggie]

we used to play rounders....even late at night was fun

[mainlander]

 

The thing I'm very conscious of having forgotten are all the rhymes we had for skipping, french skipping and playing with a ball.

 

The only ones I can remember from when I was wee are from skipping:

 

I'm a little bubble car, number ??, I went round the coooooorner, and I slammed on my brakes

 

and

 

Up the Mississippi, if you miss a loop, you're oot

[Melman]

Knifey - And yes never any hassle carrying a penknife

Best At Dying - Still the best game ever, and nothing to do with violence just pure theatricals. Hilltops and snow were the favourites as you could roll down hill in amazing contortions and supposed agony to claim your spot as 'top dog'.

West Docks - The best playground ever. Old crangs o' boats, open wooden piers to explore among, fishboxes to build gang huts out o' plus herring barrels and farlins to climb o'er.

Tyre Racing - Old tyres steered along the roads and pavements wi a stick. You could go miles then, no real traffic either pedestrians or vehicles.

Fish Box Hurleys - Nailed together wi old pram wheels and raced down Kockatoo Brae right across KHS and up the Town Hall Brae - again no cars really - and the farthest travelled was the winner.

Racing along the rooftops of the "new" Bells Brae school. If you were bold (or daft enough) you could travel the whole length of the building, by jumping the gaps - unless old Tammie Ganson the Janitor saw you.

 

Yea ... great days and amazing freedom when you think about it !!