Have you noticed how nowadays in the school holidays you see very few kids about…the draw of the screen and the phone mean they never leave the bedroom.
Does anybody explore anymore, we’d be off as a pack on our bikes…no one plays games either unless it involves trademarked designer kit and a proper facility….
Japs and Commandoes was our choice of game, but we were blood thirsty then…. But no one wanted a game of Male Models or Chartered Accounants it never quite pushed the button.
I was told once that boredom was a good thing in kids, they have to use their imagination….. or get up to mischief if you haven’t got one.

can you see the woke snowflakes allowing kids to play japs and commando,s and having toy guns and chucking stones pretending they were granades. pretending to put on jap or jerry accents when you had to play their parts. somehow cowboys and indigenous native american has not got the same ring about it that we used without any offence given. A good idea for you coastal dwellers could be a good game at sea where you can play immegrants and NLI.

Difference is in our day it was safe for the kids go out, for a start there was less cars about, when did last see a toy gun for sale and how many times do you read about a kid having his bike taken off him in the park ?

Owzat a great game for wet summer holidays.

Loved 3 pots in,used the trees at Rift House school as goalposts

that took me back. my mate still has his. played that in the wet summers before the earth caught fire and subbuteo in winter cold wet evenings.

I get flashbacks over subbuteo

At the top end of Owton Manor, the field between the L and M blocks, there was always a game of footy going on, no matter what time of the day.
During the summer holidays I don't think there was ever a time from mid morning to sunset when you couldn't get a game.
And I think the field all the way down to Catcote Road was the same.
I used to drive up that way occassionally, to see the old stamping ground, and I honestly don't think I've seen anyone out there for at least the last twenty years.
Kids just don't know what they're missing !

Football & cricket on the Rec from 10am till dusk then back home for some money from my parents to get pattie and chips from Oxy road chippy.

You must have led sheltered lives , i owned a .177 calibre webley air pistol about the age of 11 or 12.It was much more accurate than a catapult.

You’d need it in Darlo.

well i had my team in a pools kit but had to stick one to the bottom of the base because it broke. even then we had our sicknotes and injury problems.

same down my way. there was so many lads you could get close to an 11 a side game. even a few of the stiffs who could never play turned up but didn,t mind reffing or being a lino just to be part of it. cricket was not as popular but yiu could get a 6 a side. what actually do these kids do who go to matches every week. you think they,d only be glad to pretend to be their stars on a rec somewhere like we did.

The thing is, back in the day you played for the joy of playing.
Nowadays, kids with a hint of talent have to get the full kit and attend courses and believe that by getting top kit and a course the talent comes along later. No.
I also think the boys nowadays are a bit more feminised without realising it.

bradford city run a course every school holiday on the local 3g sports complex. every single one has some sort of replica kit on both lads and lasses. looking at the near full car park close to the finish of the session i doubt any of them walk to it either way. not exactly feminised but brought up a lot softer and at times you wonder who controls the family parents or the kids.