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what games did you play when you were a child?

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  • 29-03-2017 10:44am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,544 ✭✭✭


    I was just thinking before the Internet, Playstations, Mobile phones and hundreds of TV Channels what games did you play when you were young. I'm talking both indoor and outdoor games.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,506 ✭✭✭Doctor Nick


    Outdoor:
    Paths
    Hide and Seek
    Rounders
    The footy.
    Chasing.
    Kiss chasing

    Indoor:
    Board Games like Monopoly, Operation, Buckaroo


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ytpe2r5bxkn0c1


    Outdoors. Cowboys and Indians with bows and arrows make from branches in the woods beside us.

    Indoors. Card games mostly.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,767 ✭✭✭La_Gordy


    Kiss chasing.


  • Moderators, Music Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,730 Mod ✭✭✭✭Boom_Bap


    Kick the Can
    Rounders
    Bull Dog
    Kiss Chading
    Bike Ball
    Slow Bike Races
    Red Rover
    Simon Says

    We were pretty much always outdoors.


  • Registered Users Posts: 337 ✭✭Harambe


    Played a lot of outdoor games:

    Rounders - with a tennis ball and tennis racket.

    Stuck in the mud - like a game of tag where you had to freeze when you were caught and could only be freed when someone crawled through your legs.

    Bulldog - kinda like rugby, everyone had to link hands and people from the other side tried to barge through you.

    Elastics - used to tie loads of elastics together and put them around our legs and do the whole 'England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, inside, outside, donkey's tails' thing.

    Following - like a huge game of tag around the estate where you could also hide and when people got caught they joined the follower to catch everyone else.

    Scamper - like hide and seek except the catcher had a base and if anyone reached that base and said a phrase (forget what it was) the catcher had to start again.

    Kerbs - 2 people throw a ball across the road tried to hit the edge of a high kerb, we got so good at that we could easily get double kerbs with one throw!

    So many more I could mention, god I had a great childhood.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,748 ✭✭✭✭Lovely Bloke


    Soldiers, hide and seek, stuck in the mud, bulldog, chasing with a den, kick the can

    football games like squares, halfway, ABC if there were girls involved, heads and volleys

    played with figures, dinkies (I'm 37 and my 3 year old son now plays with my Hot Wheels Garage, those toys were built to last, make no mistake)


  • Registered Users Posts: 43,028 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    Outside: football,Various gun shooting games and Curbs

    Indoor:Cards, snakes & ladders,Connect 4


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,027 ✭✭✭H3llR4iser


    Well, before Internet and Playstations where were Commodore 64s, Nintendos and SEGAs - videogames aren't anything new, they track back down to the late '70s.

    The biggest difference was Internet access from home, there were no countless hours wasted crawling down the Youtube "suggestion" rabbit hole.

    But keeping it to "non-electronic" games in my case it was LEGO in 1st place, followed by Transformers and Masters of The Universe. Outside, it was bicycle racing (an extremely dangerous form of it, come think about it - with all the other kids we made a "track" out of the buidling's boundaries, and you'd have this 20-kids-strong carousel zooming around for 50-60 laps at a time, regardless of people going in and out the buildings) and of course, being from Italy, football played in any shape or form - including on slopes, between parked cars, on concrete surfaces and so on.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,569 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Apart from the usual games, there were a few we invented ourselves.

    Keep Off the Floor -You had to stay off the floor while moving round the place with somebody chasing you. You got points for reaching different parts of the room, but lost points if you were caught while on the floor.

    Ham Sandwiches - a card game invented while we were eating ham sandwiches. A bit similar to Lives, but different ways of playing the cards.

    Rabies dog - We grabbed our dog and dragged him round the place, pretending he was a wild dog who had rabies and needed to be captured. This did indeed cause the dog to behave something like a wild dog who had rabies.

    Coming Through the Gap - one-on-one football game. There was a gap in the row of trees to allow access between our house and shed. You started with the ball behind this line and advanced on the goalkeeper, who had to stay on his line until you came through the gap. You had to score, they had to save. You could keep it as long as you wanted but as soon as the keeper touched it, it was over (unless it went into the goals directly after that touch). Extra pride (but no points) for lobs and nutmegs.

    In the car, we played games that involved guessing either the make of the car coming towards us, or what the diamond-shaped roadsigns (still a smudge in the distance) said. In retrospect, my parents probably came up with those the stop us getting bored and fighting. With places we went regularly, like Kilkee, it was a memory test as much as anything else, and even now, more than 20 years later, I have a good sense of what sign will be the next one on that road.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,691 ✭✭✭Lia_lia


    Manhunt. I think the rules were something like:

    You were split into 2 teams. Both teams split up. One team came up with a word. Each person in the team was assigned a letter of the word. And then the other team had to hunt down members of the team with the letters and beat them up until they told them what their letter was. Once they had every letter and put them together to make the word they won. Or something like that.

    We lived in a rough estate :pac:


    We always played tip the can too. Also Bulldog. And I have memories of something called Red Rover, can't remember the rules though. Good times!

    I can't really remember many indoor games. We were always outdoors. I used to play chess with my Dad and Battleship with my brother alright.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,277 ✭✭✭Your Face


    Bulldog - such a brilliant game.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,691 ✭✭✭Lia_lia


    osarusan wrote: »

    Rabies dog - We grabbed our dog and dragged him round the place, pretending he was a wild dog who had rabies and needed to be captured. This did indeed cause the dog to behave something like a wild dog who had rabies.

    :eek:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 62 ✭✭bluewizard


    Cops & robbers
    Poker


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,849 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    we had a game in school called "kicking machine" 2 rows would turn to face each other and then everyone had to run the gauntlet, good times!

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,360 ✭✭✭Lorelli!


    Harambe wrote: »

    Kerbs - 2 people throw a ball across the road tried to hit the edge of a high kerb, we got so good at that we could easily get double kerbs with one throw!.

    Ye we played that :)

    All the other ones like chasing, kick the can, skipping and maybe took part in a few knick knacks :/

    We also played Stones for a while but I think we had more versions than this.



  • Registered Users Posts: 906 ✭✭✭big syke


    Lia_lia wrote: »
    Manhunt. I think the rules were something like:

    You were split into 2 teams. Both teams split up. One team came up with a word. Each person in the team was assigned a letter of the word. And then the other team had to hunt down members of the team with the letters and beat them up until they told them what their letter was. Once they had every letter and put them together to make the word they won. Or something like that.

    We lived in a rough estate :pac:

    We played that too except we called it IRA :o


  • Registered Users Posts: 337 ✭✭Harambe


    We played a lot of football as kids.

    Regular matches were rare but used to love these, we'd organise our estate vs. the next estate, these were bloody battles but great fun and the bragging rights meant everything!
    More common games were:

    30 seconds - we used to play this on the road mostly and often used my mother's front gate as the goals, she hated us for that! Broke her windows more than once and the front door often got a battering. The game was the keeper had to count to 30, in that time the outfield players were trying to score but it had to be from a cross and the ball couldn't bounce. Majority of goals were headers but you could also take volleys from a certain distance out. When you score the keeper stays in and starts again. If the keeper gets to 30 seconds, last person to touch the ball is in!

    World Cup - this was played on the grass, 1 keeper in goals and all outfield players against each other in a knockout. You score one goal you're through to the next round, last person left gets knocked out, eventually you get to the final with only 2 players left, first player to score 3 in the final is world cup champion. First person who was knocked out is in goals next time.

    3 goals in - similar to world cup but played with less players. 1 keeper in goals and all outfield players against each other. First person to score 3 goals gets to choose who's in goals for the next game.

    Then the usuals like piggy in the middle, keep ups, targets.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,690 ✭✭✭buried


    We used to live near this huge old abandoned mansion in the woods, which was literally falling to bits and pieces so what we liked to do was play 'Indiana Jones' in the thing. Re-creating the opening set-piece from Raiders of the Lost Ark, or that the mansion was inhabited by a satanic cult who had stolen golden treasure that belonged in a museum. It was great craic, pure imagination enjoyment. Looking back now though, its a wonder one of us wasn't killed in the mouldy abandoned thing. The temple of doom was actually probably safer

    "You have disgraced yourselves again" - W. B. Yeats



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,544 ✭✭✭h7nlrp2v0g5u48


    La_Gordy wrote: »
    Kiss chasing.
    Kiss chasing was very popular when I was growing up. I remember there used to be one particular girl in our neighbourhood who used to hide in the same place hopeing to be caught. She was abit on the ugly side so we tended to advoid her. Looking back now it wasn't a nice thing to do.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,569 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Lia_lia wrote: »
    :eek:

    Snapped at and bitten a good few times.

    "I haven't a bit of sympathy for you' was my mother's response.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,045 ✭✭✭✭gramar


    Football and hurling out in the garden, small goals, 3 goals in, headers and volleys.
    Making bows and arrows, rubber guns, lighting fires, fishing, making ramps for cycling, kick out ball (tip the can), hike and seek, playing cards 25's, pontoon & poker.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,544 ✭✭✭h7nlrp2v0g5u48


    Harambe wrote: »
    We played a lot of football as kids.

    Regular matches were rare but used to love these, we'd organise our estate vs. the next estate, these were bloody battles but great fun and the bragging rights meant everything!
    More common games were:

    30 seconds - we used to play this on the road mostly and often used my mother's front gate as the goals, she hated us for that! Broke her windows more than once and the front door often got a battering. The game was the keeper had to count to 30, in that time the outfield players were trying to score but it had to be from a cross and the ball couldn't bounce. Majority of goals were headers but you could also take volleys from a certain distance out. When you score the keeper stays in and starts again. If the keeper gets to 30 seconds, last person to touch the ball is in!

    World Cup - this was played on the grass, 1 keeper in goals and all outfield players against each other in a knockout. You score one goal you're through to the next round, last person left gets knocked out, eventually you get to the final with only 2 players left, first player to score 3 in the final is world cup champion. First person who was knocked out is in goals next time.

    3 goals in - similar to world cup but played with less players. 1 keeper in goals and all outfield players against each other. First person to score 3 goals gets to choose who's in goals for the next game.

    Then the usuals like piggy in the middle, keep ups, targets.
    3 goals in I remember that well. After watching the FA Cup Final on RTE we would all meet up in the local playground and play 3 goals in. I wasn't very good so I was the goalkeeper most of the time.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,575 ✭✭✭✭Riesen_Meal


    big syke wrote: »
    We played that too except we called it IRA :o

    We called it catch and bash... :/

    Wouldn't be getting away with that nowadays.... :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 337 ✭✭Harambe


    Fieldog wrote: »
    We called it catch and bash... :/

    Wouldn't be getting away with that nowadays.... :D

    We called that one looney! Except there was no letters, just literally beatings and the chasers were allowed to have sticks, mental when I think back on it. :eek:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,544 ✭✭✭h7nlrp2v0g5u48


    Knock Door Run was another game we used to play. One of us would knock at a neighbours door and then leg it. There was one particular neighbour who would follow you to the end of the earth until he caught you. If he caught you he would give you a clip round the ear. He wouln'd get away with it now.


  • Registered Users Posts: 337 ✭✭Harambe


    Knock Door Run was another game we used to play. One of us would knock at a neighbours door and then leg it. There was one particular neighbour who would follow you to the end of the earth until he caught you. If he caught you he would give you a clip round the ear. He wouln'd get away with it now.

    How could I forget knock & run haha


  • Registered Users Posts: 906 ✭✭✭big syke


    Harambe wrote: »
    How could I forget knock & run haha

    Knick Knacks!


  • Registered Users Posts: 337 ✭✭Harambe


    big syke wrote: »
    Knick Knacks!

    My Dublin fiancee also calls it that.
    We called it knock and run or knockadally :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,385 ✭✭✭✭callaway92


    Your Face wrote: »
    Bulldog - such a brilliant game.

    What was this again? I remember the name and would've played it but can't remember what it was.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 337 ✭✭Harambe


    callaway92 wrote: »
    What was this again? I remember the name and would've played it but can't remember what it was.

    I described it in my first post here but different areas could have had different rules.


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