An oul' game o' rounders

Kasabian · 16-04-2010 12:14PM

I am just sitting here at work with a big smile across my face reminiscing about those long days in the green where I lived when a young fellow. Those days literally started at 8am and finished at 11pm ( governed by the parents drinking sessions ) and were the greatest days of our lives. No stress , no worries , no thoughts of time just pure and magical fun.
The day would begin with the usual grunts at each other as we wiped the sleep from our eyes , sleep that only served to break up the days as the competitions rolled from one day to the next. People sharing their breakfast with eachother as there wasn't time for sitting at the kitchen table , food was ingested mid organisation of teams and plans for the days activities.

These days were taken up with games of rounders , which sometimes became games of cricket upon the arrival of someones cousin from England with a bat , ball and stumps .

British bulldog would become a war. The cliques started to appear but only fleetingly, these were usually finished with a swift fight and a few punches and someone running to their Mum who would come out fighting with the other Mums , little did we know at the time they were all half sniped anyway. Once this sorted and peace had decended on our little hamlet again it was back to orgainising the rest of the day , depending on the time of year it could be our very own World Cup or even a full tennis tournament to rival anything that Wimbledon could throw up.

An Olympic year was like heaven for us , we organised all kinds of competitions from the 100m to the marathon , the 100 laps of the park constituted this . It was heaven and days that I will always look back on with a smile. Life long friends were made on that little grass patch and on that perfectly oblong bit of road surrounded by the 103 council houses.
Oh the joys of being brought up on a council estate.:)

EL_Loco · 16-04-2010 12:19PM

"can I get me game lads?"

Always like that informal, I know you were here first but I'd still like to play, approach. I always said yes anyway, always a few toerags "we have enough". That always kicked off a bit of "don't be a prick". The chap would always be let play anyway.

lol, good times.

edit: actually thinking back it was a good move, I'd be on the other side of town and want to play, you'd spot the lad you stuck up for, he'd stick up for you to be let play. Ahh jaysus, politics.

PK2008 · 16-04-2010 12:23PM

Used to play a footbal type game called '3 man in'

EL_Loco · 16-04-2010 12:23PM

OldGoat wrote: »

Lamppost rope swings :cool:

boxes dragged behind bikes with people sitting in them.

<fast show>eh? eh? uhh yes, marvellous. </>

toiletduck · 16-04-2010 12:27PM

pickarooney wrote: »

Do kids still play rounders these days?

You don't have to be a kid to play! http://www.gaarounders.ie/

PK2008 · 16-04-2010 12:30PM

This all getting a bit 'jumpers for goalposts' isnt it

pickarooney · 16-04-2010 12:34PM

It was jumpers for bases in rounders so it's not a major shift

I see they're playing with a sliotar and pitching overhand on that website.

Canis Lupus · 16-04-2010 12:35PM

Why did we ever stop doing these things?

pickarooney · 16-04-2010 12:38PM

Who's going to organise the boards.ie inaugural rounders tournament?

I'm half-serious.

recyclops · 16-04-2010 12:41PM

one ball brock would be interested ha

Standard Toaster · 16-04-2010 12:42PM

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Why did we ever stop doing these things?

Playstation 1

.SONIC. · 16-04-2010 12:44PM

yeah, we still play!!

we were playing it for p.e yesterday

:)

toiletduck · 16-04-2010 12:45PM

pickarooney wrote: »

I see they're playing with a sliotar and pitching overhand on that website.

Well Rounders is one of the four games of the GAA.

I remember playing it with a tennis racket and cheap plastic ball wasn't unusual back in the day!

johnmcdnl · 16-04-2010 12:53PM

pickarooney wrote: »

Did this game ('squashers' I think) exist anywhere outside my primary school?

50 people line up on a bench in the bike shed and slam into the person nearest the wall, the objective being to 'pop' him or her out. That person would then go to the end of the line and join in the squashing. Whoever resisted the 'pop' the longest won. I think.

lol

johnmcdnl · 16-04-2010 12:54PM

pickarooney wrote: »

Did this game ('squashers' I think) exist anywhere outside my primary school?

50 people line up on a bench in the bike shed and slam into the person nearest the wall, the objective being to 'pop' him or her out. That person would then go to the end of the line and join in the squashing. Whoever resisted the 'pop' the longest won. I think.

hahah we still play a version of that game and I'm in leavin cert now lol any time everuyone ends up sitting on a windowsil in the school or something it happens lol

don't worry that game is alive and well... :P :P :P

Theta · 16-04-2010 01:01PM

The_Edge wrote: »

Nissan Bluebird rear quarter panel was the holy grail of Curbs

The holy grail in curbs for us was getting the ball to bouch off your opponents curb and back and bounce off yours again.

We used to call tip the can base. Or the hardcore hide and seek called manhunt.

Jeez I would love a game of squares or curbs right now.

phasers · 16-04-2010 01:11PM

Squares > All

pickarooney · 16-04-2010 01:18PM

What is/was squares? I don't know if I ever played it - maybe under a different name.

sidneykidney · 16-04-2010 01:20PM

That sick dying dead buried rotten forgotten one, i used to play that also, but AFAIK we called it stuck in the mud.

Or maybe thats a totally diffrent game i am thinking of

pickarooney · 16-04-2010 01:22PM

Different game - there was no ball in Stuck in the Mud. It was just a modified version of Tig/Tag/Catch where you had to stay still until someone freed you or whoever was 'on' froze everyone else.

ibarelycare · 16-04-2010 01:24PM

sidneykidney wrote: »

That sick dying dead buried rotten forgotten one, i used to play that also, but AFAIK we called it stuck in the mud.

Or maybe thats a totally diffrent game i am thinking of

Nah Stuck in the Mud is kinda like chasing. One person is on and when they catch someone that person has to stand still with their legs apart. Other players can "unstick" them by crawling under their legs (the person who's on can't catch someone while they're unsticking someone). The game ends when all the players are "stuck in the mud" and then the last person who was stuck is on in the next game.

phasers · 16-04-2010 01:25PM

In squares (The one I played anyway), there'd be five people.

four people would stand in a square shape, with one in the middle. The aim of the game was to swap places without the middle guy getting to your place first.

If the middle guy got your place while you were running you had to get in the middle.

... It's kind of hard to explain...

Edit: Only the bravest people would go for a diagonal. It was all about strategy

syklops · 16-04-2010 01:25PM

Sure, the only rounders kids play now a days is on that 'wee' yoke. And you cant even call it that cause you might offend fat people.
Twas very different in my day.

pickarooney · 16-04-2010 01:28PM

phasers wrote: »

In squares (The one I played anyway), there'd be five people.

four people would stand in a square shape, with one in the middle. The aim of the game was to swap places without the middle guy getting to your place first.

If the middle guy got your place while you were running you had to get in the middle.

... It's kind of hard to explain...

Edit: Only the bravest people would go for a diagonal. It was all about strategy

Yeah, sounds familiar all right, but it wasn't a big hit round our way. Not sure if it was called squares or four-square or something else entirely.

Closed ac · 16-04-2010 01:30PM

I still remember the day when I won the estate's curbs championship. My proudest achievement to date, brings a tear to my eye.

OutlawPete · 16-04-2010 01:32PM

TheZohan wrote: »

Curbs and smash!

I got 77 in Curbs once :cool:

People had weird scoring methods everywhere you went too, which caused rows.

My name is URL · 16-04-2010 01:37PM

Fcuk.. I'd love a game of curbs now!

Used to be world champion I did.. (in the small estate I grew up in) :pac:

Theta · 16-04-2010 01:39PM

phasers wrote: »

In squares (The one I played anyway), there'd be five people.

four people would stand in a square shape, with one in the middle. The aim of the game was to swap places without the middle guy getting to your place first.

If the middle guy got your place while you were running you had to get in the middle.

... It's kind of hard to explain...

Edit: Only the bravest people would go for a diagonal. It was all about strategy

Jaysus thats not the squares we would play!

For us it was on the road outside out houses the road had been poured in large squares with tar filling in the gaps.

Everyone picked an adjoining square (worked best with mltiples of 2 as the road had one square each side) and you kicked the ball into a persons square and it can only bounce once in their square. You have 5 lives and someones last life has to be taken using a header. It was kind of like heads and volleys but all against each other.

We still play it on the beach now and then but draw the squares on the sand!

pickarooney · 16-04-2010 01:40PM

There wasn't a kerb ('curbs' are American) within miles of my house, so I missed out on that whole experience.

*sniifffff*

SuperGrover · 16-04-2010 01:40PM

Was it just localised on our wee cul-de-sac in Coolock or did anyone else play Horse Jumping?

You'd set up obstacles around the garden (chair, clothes horse, etc.) and, just like the real thing, there'd be a timer and 4 faults for a collision, 3 faults for a refusal (I think), etc. Grand craic altogether.
That would have been back in 70s / 80s when Eddie Macken and the Aga Khan were big deals.

We also had Grand National - on one side of the road the front garden walls were just about low enough to hurdle. There were 11 gaffs and you had to hurdle every wall in between. A posh cousin of one of my neighbours caught his foot on one of the walls and plummeted head first into a rose bush. In a heap. Good times.

An oul' game o' rounders

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