British Bulldog

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

This is the game where lots of children line up in two lines, then a child from one team runs at the other line with an aim to breaking it. If you break through the line, then you rejoin your team, and your team gets another go. If the line holds firm, you join the other team, and it's their go. Many schools have banned this, and had when we were at school, but I think from anecdotal evidence that it was mainly C of E/other protestant schools that did this, whereas RC schools still allow the game. So, a test:[Poll #271314]

Comments

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have normally described my primary school as "Protestant" though. What makes you think there is a link between the two things?

[flick.livejournal.com]

Nominally, all state primary schools are protestant, afaik.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

That there's a legal requirement to have some religious content in assemblies and so on, and that I've never met a state primary school that couldn't broadly be defined as C of E (although secondary schools arte often less specific; mine was mostly methodist, I think)

[jaq.livejournal.com]

But the difference is that the schools you say are automatically C of E are mostly only nominally so, whereas Catholic schools tend to be more specifically religious.

I think your poll also doesn't take into account the age range of the respondents - I wonder if banning games is a more recent phenomenon.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

*shrug* I didn't feel there was sufficient speration of C of E schooling and state schooling in general to warrant separation in the poll.

Yes, I did think about the age range, but given that I was thinking mostly of schools which had banned the game when we were at school, I didn't think ten years here or there would make much difference

[rainbowskye.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same as the person above - I went to three different primary schools and none of them were defined as C of E or anything religious?
Presumably there are differences in region too - I filled it out on the first school I went to as it was played there and not banned. But I don't remember it at either of the others.

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

By that definition then my primary school was Church of Scotland. But mostly I'd just describe it as a state school. Bulldogs was banned, though I remember my little sister talking about playing it.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

There are state primaries that are Roman Catholic. My state primary was not-just-nominally CofE. Some are now 'multifaith' in that they allow the religious content to be of any (mainstream) type.

(I worked for the local Education Department for a couple of years administering said schools. Trust me.)

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. However, a specifically RC school still has to be 10% funded by the diocese, no? I figured it was worth m,entiong 'standard' state schools, and that they probably fitted in with more definitely protestant schools, and if anyone disagreed, well, that's what 'other' is for.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I played the game 'British Bulldog', but it's not the game you describe as above.

The game we called by that name was played thusly:

The game is played in a large area with clearly defined sides. One person was 'on' (i.e. in the middle of the area), while the others gathered in a huddle on one side. The person who was 'on' chose a category (e.g. 'colours' or 'countries' or 'animals') and the team huddled up and assigned each player a name within that category (so if it was animals, one person would be cat, one would be fox, one fish, etc). The person who was 'on' would then shout out possible names in the category, until someone's name was called. That person had to indicate that they were the one chosen, and then the whole group would run across the area to get to the other side, while the person who was 'on' tried to capture the selected person, and hold them down while they said 'British Bulldog' three times. Obviously the other people running could, if they chose, co-operate to stop the person in the middle getting to the selected player.
If the player was caught, he would also go in the middle, and try to catch in the next round.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

We played games like that too, but never by that name. Interesting.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

I went to a RC convent school first then a normal state school after that, we played it in both.

[kiaransalyn.livejournal.com]

We used to play British Bulldog in the cubs. However, one of our Cub Scout leaders, Steve was a proper sadist, or should that be improper sadist? No matter, the way we played it was to have one person who was the Bulldog and the rest of us had to be caught. The crowd gathered at one end of the Scout Hut and the Bulldog was in the middle, then we would all charge to the other side. The Bulldog had to catch somebody and then he would have a fellow to help assist in the capture of others.

If you're still with me you're probably wondering about the sadism. Simple, the Bulldog was tied up!

Jolly good character building! Oddly all of Steve's 'games' involved violence and bondage. The worse one was..well a story for another time perhaps.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's more like the version I played, though without the tying up, just rugby-tackling and holding to the ground.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

That's more like the one I played, too ... sometimes there were advantages to being a large chap who can build up serious inertia when moving ... [grin]

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

There's also plenty of advantages to being small and nippy too (as long as you don't start the game as 'it', or you'll spend your whole time running around and never being able to hang on to anyone long enough to get anyone on your side!).

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

[grin] My sheer bulk occasionally meant that the catchers avoided me as well, as they didn't fancy trying to get in my way once I was moving ...

[emperor]

Yes, that's what I think of as "British Bulldog". We did it at scouts, but it was banned at school

[atreic.livejournal.com]

What, complete with tying up?

Boy am I glad I was in guides....

[naath.livejournal.com]

We never played it at the RC school though I don't know if it was banned. Then I went to a Private (mostely Protestant) school where we did play it, untill it was banned becaues 'we might hurt the small children' even though the littelest one's had their own playground.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

We played it, but as to whether or not it was banned I cannot recall.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

Our school banned it because it was a juniors+infants school with one playground; the juniors would play and the infants would get in the way, basically ;-). If it had been just juniors, they may well have let us carry on.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

State school, don't remember a game like that though. The main informal violent-ish game that I remember involved people standing against a wall and trying to dodge as other people threw a ball at the wall (there was more to it than that but I forget the details). They made us play Rugby, too.

[emperor]

Ah, I vaguely remember something like that.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

We invented a much better game than this which was called Blood Boot. It was a bit like rugby, except with one of my wellingtons. The casualty rate proved gloriously high and it was swiftly banned by the headmaster. C of E schools, tch.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

We called that Red Rover mostly, British Bulldog was what the teachers called it. What we called British Bulldog was a different game, involving 'freezing' and going under teammates' legs to free them, it had elements of tag and elements of rugby IIRC!

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

The 'freezing' and going under legs was called 'Sticky in the Mud' at my school.

[sparrowsion]

Certainly the description sounds more like what we called Red Rover. (The person to attempt the crossing being singled out by the defending side with the chant "Red Rover, Red Rover, send <person> right over.") British Bulldog, as played at school and cubs, was IIRC, one entire side trying to get past the other, with just tackling and not the linked-hands thing.

"Primary school" isn't well defined. To me, "primary" would be "infants" (Years 1, 2 and 3 in modern parlance, I think) and I don't recall either game from there (but then no-one wanted me playing with them anyway). I do recall on at least one occasion it being banned (the ban must have lapsed, or been forgotten and a reminder was required) at juniors, due to the playground being tarmac. Infants was explicitly CofE (likewise cubs), juniors just woolly state.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I did mean ;juniors' rather than primary, hich as far as 'm concerned is infants+juniors.

Sorry

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

We called that stuck-in-the-mud, and so does Benedict

[chess]

Although they *did* ban it when I was in Y6 because someone trampled some reception class children.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I went to a state school. But it wasn't really religious at all, unless Bob Dylon blowing in the wind type hymns count as religious.

There's a big difference between normal state schools, and specifically CoE schools

[crystal-claire.livejournal.com]

We had:

Stick In The Mud (freezing and going through legs as described above)

Chainies (sounds more like Ghoti's original description, where you had to break or bypass the chain to get to the other side and joined the chain if you failed)

British Bull Dogs, where you had to run from one side of the playground to the other, past the bulldogs. If you got caught by the bulldogs, then you joined them for the next round. If not, you were free to run it again. The game probably started with only one or two bulldogs, but by the end, there would be only a couple of people trying to evade the other 30.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that was the game I was thinking of.

Casual spoddig causes invalid LJ polls - I've *never* played the game described here as BB

[simont]

Yes, that was the game I knew as British Bulldog. None of this "two lines" business at all...

[davefish.livejournal.com]

As with me, though there were also two variants.

The gentle one where you had to pick the person up and say "1,2,3 British Buldogs" and then they would be caught, and the somewhat rougher one where you had to wrestle them onto the ground.

Of course the best plan was usually to follow very closely the biggest bunch of people and hope to avoid any assaults on your bulldog-dom.

[crystal-claire.livejournal.com]

Just hijacking this thread to say "Hi, babe", and give Simon a big big hug! *grins*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

We had a particularly psychopathic version of this at Cubs, called Jack Frost. Basically the same game, only played in pitch darkness. You could rely on at least one minor injury per game. I think we got a few broken bones out of it.

[peteski.livejournal.com]

We used to play British Bulldog as a means to practise rugby. You had to tackle the people properly for them to also be 'on'. Also, the people running accross the field had to pass the rugby ball along the line.

Cor.

[shermarama]

We played Red Rover, but Bulldog was banned, and it was a Protestant private school. I didn't pick up the finer details of whether Bulldog involved chains or not because, since it was banned, we only ever talked about it. If the older years hadn't told us about it I don't think we'd have known what it was at all.

The only version I've played was in tae kwon do training, where you just had to tag someone rather than hold them down; the aim there being speed and jinking ability rather than violent fun.