School Playground Games

[ReZourceman]

Remmaennissing FTW.

 

So what games did you play when in school (or when you were a child)? I'm effectively going to go in chronological order, and explain what they are - for a few reasons. One, in case you havn't heard of it and Two, in case it has a different name to the one you might be familiar with.

 

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Stuck In The Mud, the considerably superior and more team orientated game as opposed to (and evolved from) "It". One player would start the game as the "Unsticker" (can't remember if this is the correct name or if it even had a name) .....Okay I've just realised I'm not even certain how it worked. Okay, but there was at least one "Sticker", if he or she tags you then you have to stand still with your legs apart. The Unsticker must come along and crawl through your legs to unstick you - and you become an unsticker. Great game. Lots of fun. Played it with a girl I.......never mind (Sorry. Obviously had to get one paedo joke in, thought I'd get it out of the way).

 

Familys, game where you roleplay being a family. I was surprisingly lucrative with the ladies in primary school (things changed in latter secondary school) but yeah. Loving life, having kids, cooking and sexing the ladies.

 

40, 40 In, I imagine this one may have wildly different names. Not certain why its even called this, although I could guess of course. Anyway, so one person guards a "base". The other players all hide. Like hide and seek. Then they must all get to the base, and tag it and call out "Forty forty in!", however if the guard tags them, then they lose, and join him or her, and become a guard. So all these people have to get to the base, stealthily without being tagged. AWESOME game.

 

Knock and Run, I rarely played it. I'm only mentioning it because of the ridiculous name Claire had for it. We were discussing this subject earlier and she said along the lines of "Did you play "Knock Down Ginger"?" I was like "WTF. You literally pushed over ginger kids?" and was trying to understand why her group of friends/locational area called it that. Strange.

 

Bulldog, pretty epic game. I mean, I was shit at it, and found it dangerous (I'm a pussy about this kind of thing), but still a great idea. One person in the middle of the playground, is the Bulldog. Everyone else is standing at one end. The aim is to get from that end to the other end, by running - without getting tagged by the Bulldog. If the Bulldog tags you then you join him and her and become a Bulldog. Winrar is teh last person to be tagged obviously.

 

Last one is one I only discovered at my second secondary school in Bucks. It had a few names. The first of which I have absolutely no idea and would be interested to hear if other areas called it this, because we called it almost exclusively this;

 

Bum or Four Court as it was rarely referred to as. This was a fairly fun four player tennis ball game. There were four small squares, all adjacent, with a player in each. You play basically tennis with hands, and bounce it into your opponents courts, and if they miss the ball you're out and rotate in another player.

 

 

 

So how about you?

[Happenstance]

I know we played Bulldog and Stuck in the Mud.

 

Others that stick out are tig and bike tig.

 

I did have a massive collection of those monster in your pocket toys which we would take turns hiding in the garden and then the others would have to go find then the one who had the most won. I still find the occassional one of those in the garden to this day.

 

Other than that it was usually just a load of football.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Wow, ReZ made it 12 sentences into a thread named "School Playground Games" before making a paedo joke. I'm honestly impressed!

[Zell]

Bulldog, pretty epic game. I mean, I was shit at it, and found it dangerous (I'm a pussy about this kind of thing), but still a great idea. One person in the middle of the playground, is the Bulldog. Everyone else is standing at one end. The aim is to get from that end to the other end, by running - without getting tagged by the Bulldog. If the Bulldog tags you then you join him and her and become a Bulldog. Winrar is teh last person to be tagged obviously.

 

When we played Bulldog, the Bulldogs had to rugby tackle the other players to the ground (obviously we would play this on the school field and NOT on the playground!). I wasn't particularly strong, but it was still a hell of a lot of fun. Dangerous though, I think we stopped playing when we realised everyone was getting injured.

[Mr-Paul]

"40, 40 In" was called "9 9 In" around heeeeeeere.

 

Didn't know numbers that big when I was young :p

[jayseven]

We used to call it '44 save-all' -- never (rarely) played it on the playground. It was reserved for commando-based espionage games of metal-gear stealth up the park on a long weekend or during summer. Epic.

 

We played It on lines -- essentially the same as the bog-standard game, just the rules being you had to use the lines marked on the playround, and you could only be 'it' if you were tagged on the same line. Our playground had the basketball court intersect with the football pitch so it was quite fun.

 

There were various good/bad games; Cops and Robbers or Cowboys and Indians but they were stupid and nobody ever 'died' when they were shot so they were stupid.

 

I played 'doctor and nurse' and Kiss Chase a few times, but ultimately it was football. Yeah. Rain days = awesomeness though! Boardgames and stuff.

[EEVILMURRAY]

I've never heard of 40-40 in game, but it sounds awesome.

 

I invented a game called Jungle, which follows the hide-and-seek (Which we shortened to "Hido/Hydo, because we're dope yo'!") formula, but you need a very long grass field for this. One plays the Lion and must catch everyone. Everyone is crawling in the field so you don't know who is near.

 

Also, playing Tracker at one of the N-E meets was genius.

[Rummy]

Knock down ginger is the well known term, ReZ. YOU'RE the weird one. I always knew it as that, though not sure why.

 

Stuck in the mud we didn't learn it as crawling through the legs(tho i played it as that also), it used to be once 'it' you stood with your arms out, and a non-it person had to run under your arm to unstick you. I'm sure there was some way it ended up that you ran out of non-it people, though, or maybe we just swapped round. I can't remember.

 

40/40 is called that cos the original guard has to shut their eyes etc and count to 40 whilst the hiders hide. Not sure why it needed two 40s in the name, though.

 

Bulldog was cool, though bulldog was a bit more of a...vicious version, I think. Basically stop the other person getting to the other end! It was banned in that form in our school, and we had the more tame semi-semi(called so cos of the semis on the playground from the drawed on pitch). That sounds like your version, run from one to the other and not get tagged, if you do you become a tagger etc. Game keeps going and going with the survivors running from end to end each time. I understand why it gets banned, we had two kids crack their heads open from running into some unsuspecting other year and bouncing off them into the rock hard ground.

 

Never had Bum/Four court, though secondary had the classic pat ball, and the more awesome goalie squash that we seemed to play less for some gay reason.

 

EDIT: nevermind just seen your bulldog was the same more aggressive one i was thinking of.

Edited May 30, 2011 by Rummy

[EEVILMURRAY]

Knock down ginger is the well known term, ReZ. YOU'RE the weird one. I always knew it as that, though not sure why.

What did it entail?

[Ramar]

Hmm "40, 40 In" sounds a lot like what we called Timp 'n' Alley around here. Fuck knows where that name came from, but the base was a lampost, when you got home you had to say "timp 'n' alley 1,2,3".

[Goafer]

Red Rover

 

I have no idea if schools still allow it, or why they ever did to be honest.

 

2 lines of kids, each at opposite ends of the play area. Each team holds hands to form a solid line.

 

Someone from the first team yells "Red Rover, Red Rover send (opposing players name) right over". That player has to run across the play area and break through the chain of people. If they don't they join the opposing team. If they do, they go back to their own team. Winner is the team that ends up with all the players.

 

I don't remember any injuries, but God knows why there weren't any.

 

Also remember Stuck in the Mud, 40, 40 In and Bulldog (although we called it British Bulldog).

[Rummy]

What did it entail?

 

You never knew knock down ginger?! It's the classic kids 'game' of knocking at a door/house and running away. Not sure why it was a thing to do, though.

[Happenstance]

I only knew it as Knock and Run here as well

[jayseven]

The game goafer talks of was banned in a lot of schools. I never personally played it but I saw the older kids playing it.

 

re: 40-40; it's essentially hide-and-seek with teams, where the hiding team are trying to get to a safe spot but usually that's defended so various rules are made to give the hiding team a chance of safety. If someone was caught they'd either switch to the other side (unfair) or be put in a 'pen' that you could rescue them from.

 

Essentially the rules were set specifically per game, depending on how many were playing and where we played. We spent many a summer day playing it in a massive park that wasn't just a field - it was sooo cooooool...

[EddieColeslaw]

We played Stuck in the Mud, Red Rover, Catching (tag/tig, sometimes with a jail/prison for people who got caught), duck, duck, goose, Steal the Bacon, and Polio. We played Grandmother's Footsteps too, but I forgot what we called it.

[Goafer]

Knock Down Ginger was called Knock-a-door Ginger here. Or cherry knocking.

 

Never really did it to be honest.

[Ganepark32]

Only one I remember was Bulldog, but in two variations. In both, we'd play on a steep hill within the school grounds but in one, it'd be the normal rules expect with rugby tackling or being pushed into either the plain bushes on one side or the thorned bushes on the other. In the other variation, you'd get your school jumper, twist it up and simply swing it like crazy as people ran up or down the hill. If you got knocked down, you'd do the same with your jumper and rinse and repeat until you have a winner.

 

Remember a few people getting hurt in the second one often (and it resulted in my first ever 'detention' type punishment) but we didn't really care. Good fun.

 

Other than that, at high school we played Fives and broke many a window And also came up with a variation known as Twos where instead of the single bounce before hitting the wall, you had to scoop hit the ball so that there was no bounce at all before the ball hit the wall. Doesn't sound exciting but it meant you were playing over a much larger area than with Fives and with tennis balls, it made it much more difficult to get it to the wall without the bounce.

[Rummy]

Tbf anyway, knock down ginger ain't really a playground game :P

[EEVILMURRAY]

I see. We called it Knock-A-Door-Run.

[Retro_Link]

Yep '40 40 In'... Only we called it Dub Dub In for whatever reason! Great game!!

 

Stuck In The Mud, yes! British Bulldogs would occasionally get played, but you really had to be the only class/year in the playground.

 

And Tag, a classic!

Edited May 30, 2011 by Retro_Link

[Beast]

British Bulldog and Red Rover FTW. Tig was cool as well. Never heard of the rest. I like the sound of Tracker though.

 

Tell a lie, I heard of Knock and Run but I found it pointless.

[nekunando]

At my primary school there was a playground for P1-P3 and then another playground for P4-P7..

 

In the early years, I played my fair share of Tig and Stuck in the Mud.. and a few Hop Scotch races too

 

We also played What Time is it, Mr Wolf? where someone would stand with their back to everyone else and the rest would stand in a line a certain distance away from the 'Wolf'. Someone would ask "What time is in, Mr. Wolf?" and, for example, if the 'Wolf' said "8 O'Clock" everyone would take 8 steps towards him and then when the question was asked again, the 'Wolf' would shout "Dinner Time" and turn around quickly to try to catch someone as they all tried to run back towards their original position. If you were caught, you became the 'Wolf'

 

I also remember playing Families with a couple of people when I was in P2 and I was always picked to be the 'Dad' with a girl from P3.. so we could kiss, occasionally I also recall sitting in the seat in front of the girl in a trip to see a Pantomime and reaching my hand back to hold hers during the trip home. I don't have a clue what happened her, though She must have moved somewhere else because she disappeared and I never saw her again It was so long ago (I was only between 5 and 6, after all ) that part of me questions if it actually happened.. but it definitely did

 

Between P4 and P7, we got to play football in the playground every morning before school began for 15 minutes (I miss those days ) and then football on the pitch towards the Summer during lunch when the weather was good! When we couldn't play on the grass, we made do with a bottle top most lunch times to kick around the plaground. So good

 

There were times when the classes would join together to play a massive game of British Bulldogs the whole way across the playground or indeed Red Rover. We also played with skipping ropes where we either had races to one end of the playground and back or we'd jump into one of the long skipping ropes with people at either end and try not to get hit by it as the speed increased.. or you'd try to run in as it was already moving at pace!

 

Amazing times : peace:

Edited May 30, 2011 by nekunando

[EddieColeslaw]

Oooh I forgot about "What Time is it, Mr Wolf?"! I remember not liking it much though.

[heroicjanitor]

Knock Down Ginger was called Knock-a-door Ginger here. Or cherry knocking.

 

Was called a knocker-bocker here.

 

Used to play:

Tip the can

Human sardines

Cops and robbers

What time is it mr wolf?

Red letter

Stuck in the mud

Dodgeball

Chasing

Blind man's bluff

Chinese whispers

Conkers

The ground is lava

I spy

Manhunt

[Paj!]

British Bulldog was my life. Never played it at school to my knowledge, usually outside school, in my friends perfect-for-it garden.

 

My school didn't allow ball games all over the playground in case of smashed windows (football/rugby was played in the more open areas though) but we had an archaic/exclusive to Edinburgh private schools (?) game called Fives. Which was really just hitting a tennis ball at a wall.