Long before the days of the iPad, Xbox and digital TV children ventured out of their rooms and into this thing called the light. They knocked for friends and played games outdoors no matter the weather. Today, this is almost seen as a scandalous idea with many preferring to stare at computer screens for hours on end, interacting with friends through social networking sites and the likes.
Here are our top games of the nineties…
Kick the Can
This game was strange to say the least as no one actually kicked the ‘can’ but lampposts. A bit like ‘ hide and go seek’ it consisted of one player being ‘on’ who counted to thirty at the ‘can’ while the others hid around the local area. The player at the ‘can’ then had the impossible task of finding all the players some of whom thought it would be funny to hide in their houses. It wasn’t funny.
Nonetheless, once spotted in a nearby garden the ‘can’ man or woman shouted “Kick the can; kick the can, I see…. Tommy hiding in Missus Maguire’s garden”. Then poor auld Tommy was done for and held captive at the ‘can’ until another player came to the rescue making their way to the ‘can’ without being caught and shouting “Kick the can, kick the can , I free Tommy”. When all the players had been rounded up at the ‘can’ the game started again, with some other unfortunate soul assigned with the job of finding the others.
Knick Knacks
The aim of Knick Knacks was simple, a player was chosen each time to knock at a neighbour’s house with everyone playing the game quickly dispersing before the unsuspecting neighbour opened the door to find that there was nobody there. However, if you didn’t get away on time you rapidly had to think of a reason for knocking at their door. “Eh, sorry did my ball go over your back wall?” This game is probably the reason for a large number of twenty-something adrenaline junkies in Irish society today.
Curbs
All that was needed for this game was two players (A and B), a ball and well, curbs of course. Each player took to a curb and attempted to hit the ball off the other player’s path for a whopping ten points. If the ball bounced back to the player ‘A’ or vice versa, they received twenty points. They then had free rein hitting the curb from the half way line until they missed and the ball was returned to player ‘B’.
Here is where the shitaki mushrooms went down, once the ball was in player B’s hands, ’A’ had to make it back to their curb without being hit by the ball. If hit by the ball, ‘B’ was given all of ‘A’s points. The player who reached 200 points first was the winner of the game. Jazzy stuff such as 50 points for throwing the ball over a moving car and hitting the curb could also be included.
What games kept you entertained for hours on end ?
*Rules of games may vary, depending on where you are playing them.*
Image: Wikimedia Commons- Wusel007
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