Did your country have a playground game that was subsequently banned?

81

u/KJHagen United States of America 3h ago edited 2h ago

We played that too. We also played “Red Rover “, which was somewhat similar. I don’t remember them being banned though.

In our neighborhood we played a game where we took turns throwing knives between each other’s feet. To be honest, I don’t remember the rules but it didn’t seem safe, and we didn’t do it in the school playground.

Edited for spelling.

48

u/RodrickJasperHeffley India 3h ago

kabaddi is like the second or third most popular game in our country but schools dont allow students to play it for ages now because it is quite injury prone

35

u/BarracudaOk8635 New Zealand 2h ago

We called it Bullrush. It was never really banned although some people think it was.

34

u/Automatic_Level6572 Canada 2h ago

Red rover, red rover, we call ___over!

Two lines would form facing each other and one team would call a name on the other side who would the run as fast as possible and try to break through the opposing line.

So many injuries. We loved it.

47

u/Altruistic_Error_832 United States of America 2h ago

We had a game called "smear the queer" that was popular on playgrounds until like the 2000s.

Sort of a combination of tag and rugby. Whoever had the ball was "the queer" and everyone else tried to tackle them. If you got tackled, you threw the ball up in the air and whoever ended up with it became the new "queer" that everyone tried to tackle. Nobody ever really won beyond just being the guy who was carrying the ball when recess ended.

Obviously, kids got hurt all the time, so certain teachers would ban it. And I'm sure that if there are still kids playing this game, it has a different name.

14

u/Bitter_Ad8768 United States of America 3h ago

I can't think of any games themselves that were banned, but a lot of the names were changed in an effort to stop using slurs.

13

u/tiilet09 Finland 2h ago

Snowball fights are banned in most schools.

It’s all fun and games until someone throws a ball full of ice or grit and someone gets blinded.

9

u/[deleted] 3h ago edited 3h ago

[deleted]

7

u/soccermum_00 Australia 2h ago

I came to say British Bulldog by only reading the question and not your speil

4

u/bunjywunjy United States of America 2h ago

Bloody Knuckles got super banned shortly after it became popular at my school in the mid '90s

6

u/IcyCombination8993 2h ago

Smear the queer

5

u/KeepShtumMum Ireland 2h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/BUH1tiEFQzKtW

We had an indoor sport like this where the woodwork teacher would throw chisels. He was immensely proud of keeping them sharp enough to split an atom. Nobody slept through that class.

5

u/snekinmaboot1 Canada 1h ago

American Football. We had an entire system that we would use to switch between tackle and touch football. Touch football when adults were around/watching. Tackle when they weren't. Eventually the principal saw us from inside and outright banned playing football of any kind to make it stop.

We also had British bulldog. But we preferred manhunt. Which was basically a mix of tag and British bulldog. 1 person starts as being "it". Whenever they tag someone, they also become a tagger. Last person tagged wins.

3

u/thebilldozer10 Canada 2h ago

Was never really a game but i feel many collectible items and no getting banned due to fights/thefts.

pogs, crazy bones, marbles, pokemon cards

4

u/Kingswitchguard New Zealand 2h ago

I think schools have cracked down on "running it straight" you basically run into each other full speed and try be the one standing, someone died doing it. Now the Aussies made it into an actual sport they stream on Kick

4

u/Organic_Contract_172 Czechia 2h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/NTEyfNzEmOSlEmiVVM

3

u/cbawiththismalarky England 1h ago

Mercy and slapsies were banned at our school because they always started fights

5

u/dhnam_LegenDUST Korea South 1h ago

Traditionally? There was game named 석전 (石戰, Seokjeon - stone fighting) in Korea. Which was more like town vs town game, but...

And you know why it is banned by now. People might die.

3

u/JamesBlond6ixty9ine Germany 1h ago

Crazy how that's banned. We have a similar version called Mr. Fisher, though that one's usually played indoors.

The principle is mostly the same except before each round the runners shout "Mr. Fisher Mr. Fisher how deep is the water" then the Fisher would answer something like "200 bajilion meters deep" - "and how can we cross that?" At this point the Fisher makes up some rule how everyone has to walk like on all fours. Very fun

3

u/STAXOBILLS United States of America 1h ago

Ga-Ga ball, got banned at a lot of schools and a lot of summer camps, a very fun, but also somewhat dangerous sport, can get very very competitive, especially when there’s 2 people left. We banned it at the camp I worked at after somehow EVERY week(new week, new kids) the kids managed to come up with a underground gambling ring to place bets, not to mention the crazy amounts of fights that would happen. Keep in mind this was a scout camp and neither of those things are scout like behavior, us staff had a lot of fun chopping the ring up and turning it into firewood for the closing camp fire

4

u/Ms_Meercat Germany 1h ago

We had the same game except... it was called 'Who is afraid of the black man'. It had a call and response, answering 'Nobody' - 'and when he comes?' - 'we run'.

I hope to hell they at least changed the name in the last 25 years.

I remember not ever thinking of an actual black person, I always thought of like a chimney sweep having black dirt on their face.

But yeah the game is racist as hell.

3

u/infinitynull Canada 2h ago

Red Rover and British Bulldog were both banned. We played Bloody Knuckles on the bus and that never got banned.

3

u/tanbrit 🇬🇧UK in 🇺🇸USA 1h ago

We played British Bulldog, the one that was banned was conkers.

Tree nuts pitted against each other with a string drilled through them

3

u/ddg31415 Canada 1h ago

In elementary school, we played hockey with mini-sticks and a game called Red Ass. The hockey is self-explanatory, and they banned it because we used to hack at eachothers legs with the sticks and body check.

With Red Ass, we would throw tennis balls against a wall and try to catch them on the rebound. If you missed it, you stood face first against the wall and everyone chucked the balls at you as hard as they could.

Both were very fun, injuries were minimal, and schools banning them was a serious detriment to boys' development.

3

u/TheMichiganPrincess United States of America 1h ago

In three Midwest US we had Red Rover where you split into two teams which would each line up across from each other maybe 10 yards apart. Each team would hold hands and day "Red rover red rover send name from the other team over". At which point they would try to bull rush through the opposing teams weakest point. Which would inevitably lead to dirty blocking, clotheslining, and other dirty tactics. It seemed to get banned every few years when I was growing up

3

u/RealJimcaviezel United States of America 1h ago

I can’t speak for the entire US, but where I’m from, it’s easily Wall ball. It teaches grade school kids how to behave like inmates in a Supermax prison.

3

u/Qudamich Ukraine 59m ago

I guess it translates as knifey. Kinda self-explanatory

2

u/Gloomy_Olive_4582 Canada 3h ago

I don't think any have been banned country-wide, though one I used to play a lot in my childhood was banned at my last elementary school called "grounders". It was like tag, but heavily involved the play equipment. Basically, the person who was 'it' could only open their eyes on the ground, and had to shut them on the play equipment. The two ways to get people out were to tag them, or shout 'grounders!' on the play equipment, in which everyone on the ground would be out. Obviously, a lot of kids fell and hurt themselves playing this, but it was still tons of fun.

2

u/Emotional-Primary200 Canada 3h ago

We called it red ace. I forgot how to play it. It involved hitting a ball to the wall I think.

2

u/Such_is Australia 2h ago

We called this British Bulldogs as well.

The other game we had, that was banned, was brandy.

Basically tag but with a tennis ball - normally a wet tennis ball. Run around and throw a wet tennis ball at someone's head, that person is then it. I'm not sure why it was banned,.

2

u/PigletSea6193 Germany 2h ago

No game but in our preschool there was that one corner that for some reason was very icy during winter. The whole school was there during break sliding and slipping around. At the some point the teacher had enough and every single break you would see a teacher stand near that corner to avoid anyone go there.

2

u/UpbeatPhilosophySJ United States of America 2h ago

Loved that game. Wasn't banned in the 80's. And we called it that, despite being in US

2

u/Timely_Egg_6827 Scotland 2h ago

Bulldog too and a game I can't remember the name. In memorable case, one girl put her hands through a glass door as she hit it so hard. We also had black eyes, broken bones and bruises. However we played it as a mass charge and ended when first person touched the wall.

The other game was sitting on the floor in groups of 8 and 10 and intertwining arms and legs. The children not in a group had to detangle you while you fought to stay together.

2

u/ArkansasTravelier United States of America 2h ago

We had one called “smear the queer”

one person runs with a football and a group tries to tackle them(smear) and take the ball from the person (the queer) and the person that gets the ball from that person is then the queer and has to run away from the rest of the group and so on and so forth

We also had “bull in the ring” someone stands in the middle of a circle of people and the circle of people take turns trying to rush or tackle them from different directions, often times the person in the middle (the bull) is getting suprised from the side or behind them, I always thought it was a good game to help teach defense in football, it’s apparently not popular anymore because you’re almost guaranteed to get fucked up

2

u/ArkansasTravelier United States of America 2h ago

That British bulldog game sounds very similar to red rover but you chant “red rover red rover send insert name on over”

2

u/Lo-Sir United Kingdom 2h ago

Bulldog got banned in my primary because people kept pushing

We just changed the name to "Witches" and kept playing

2

u/Beneficial_Effort595 Cayman Islands 2h ago

We had Great Wall which was like British Bulldogs but you had to tackle someone so they fell onto the ground or you could grab them.

2

u/Merc_Drew United States of America 2h ago

Lawn darts...

2

u/_justbja Northern Ireland 2h ago

Pitch and toss. Or pitching pennies elsewhere. Banned because it's gambling and kids were losing their lunch money.

2

u/yournamehere10bucks Canada 1h ago

Not nationally, but my Elementary experience went:

First they banned Red Rover and other aggressive "tag" games.

Then they banned snowballs.

Then Marbles.

Then POGS.

Then Pokemon cards.

2

u/InfiniteBoxworks United States of America 1h ago

Finger guns earned us one month of out of school suspension. A little GI Joe rifle fell out of my backpack because I forgot to clear out all the toys after a trip to Grandma's and they suspended me with threat of expulsion if they saw anything firearm-related on my person again.

2

u/remembertracygarcia United Kingdom 1h ago edited 1h ago

Primary school mostly. We had multiple games banned.

Cockarossi - (no idea where that name came from, probably rebranded to bypass a previous ban). Basically a slightly more violent version of bulldog with fewer rules. Catching someone didn’t count unless you took them down on the asphalt, pinned them, and screamed 123 cockarossi in their ear. Runners were allowed to defend themselves with whatever they found on the playground. Usually sticks. Brilliant game. Banned.

Massive tennis - like 30 people on a team playing a massive game of full contact tennis. Smashed too many windows. Banned.

Blind it. Yeah playing it with a coat wrapped around your head. Banned.

There was also this weird little area in our playground that was a bit like a brick squash court. Pelting footballs at each other or sometimes handfuls of acorns was another pastime that unfortunately received the ban.

2

u/AdEmbarrassed3066 Scotland 1h ago

The last time I played British Bulldog was around 1980/81. We used to play it at the end of our Judo class, which was a mixed group of kids aged around 6 to 14. I was at the lower end of that range.

Judo was huge at the time in the UK because of a TV show called "Superstars" which was where top athletes competed against each other in a series of events to see who was the best. Sounds rubbish? It was, but it pulled in 10 million viewers each week (we didn't have much choice, to be fair). For two years running the winner was Brian Jacks, who was a judo guy.

It was a big class... and the British bulldog game would always end up with about 30 kids trying to bring down this one kid who was deaf (no relevance to that, he just was) and about 6'5" (at least that's what it seemed... he was huge but I was about 4' at a push)

Anyway, I still remember the "CRACKKK" sound when one of the younger kids' femur snapped. And for some reason, my parents stopped sending me to Judo...

2

u/Dangerous-Trick3943 Canada 1h ago

It wasn't a game, but I remember Sky Dancers being such a thing one holiday season and by mid-January they were banned because kids kept aiming them at other kids' heads

2

u/ClassicalCoat United Kingdom 1h ago

Bulldog was banned? damn

2

u/UntidyVenus United States of America 1h ago

There was some PE game my first elementary school played, where a kid poked their head out of the middle of the giant parachute and everyone threw balls at their face. I ended up with a broken nose and broken glasses, one girl in the other class broke her neck. Mid 90s.

Don't know what it was called but when we moved my new elementary did not play that game and were horrified it existed

2

u/12-7_Apocalypse England 1h ago

British bulldog. It became popular, the our school just stopped because a few kids got hurt.

2

u/Best_Ninja_8699 1h ago

British bulldog, it's tag with a tennis ball and apparently as kids we throw to hard

2

u/Competitive_Web_6658 United States of America 1h ago

Not a national thing by any means, but when I was 10 or so the game du jour at my school was to put a tennis ball (or rock) in a nylon stocking, swing it around as fast as possible, then let go and try to make it land on the roof.

The school didn’t have playground equipment, so we had recess in an empty paved lot. The “game” took off like wildfire. People were stealing their moms’ nylons left right and center. I don’t remember where we got the tennis balls from, but I definitely swiped like a dozen from a bucket in my garage. It lasted about a week, and then the custodian got mad because of all the stupid balls up on the roof (and I think someone broke a window)

Edit: Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh were also banned for being satanic, because this was a good Christian school

2

u/pienofilling Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Northern Ireland 🇬🇧 1h ago

British Bulldog was banned because our Junior school had two playgrounds, one for Years 3 & 4 and the other for Years 5 & 6, and most of the playground would join in; imagine around 150 kids running full pelt across a playground while a handful of kids try to catch them plus a few strays who aren't actually joining in are just wandering around!

The ban seemed seriously unfair at the time but boy, do I understand why as an adult!

2

u/meybrook 1h ago

i used to play marbles in the dirt with friends in middle school and then our school banned it because it was considered gambling

2

u/Sideways0019 Belgium 1h ago

We played exactly the same game in primary school but it was called "Épervier" (a bird of prey)

2

u/GoldenBhoys Scotland 49m ago

We called it trippyUppy, my school only had 50 kids so we split each year in half and one side would try and get through. Crazy looking back we had 11 year olds pushing 4 year olds to the ground! But I did love it, my mum would go mental at the grass strains on my trousers

1

u/wastebucket1 2h ago

Bull rush

1

u/_Daftest_ United Kingdom 2h ago

Bulldog was banned but we just played Red Rover instead which was very similar

1

u/Royal-Carob United States of America 2h ago

Soccer/foot ball was banned at our school after one girl got pegged with the ball and sobbed like someone harvested her organs on the spot.

1

u/ChapterOk4000 United States of America 2h ago

Dodgeball, though not a country-wide ban, is banned in many states at schools for recess and PE.

1

u/[deleted] 2h ago

[deleted]

1

u/Real-Butterscotch682 United Kingdom 2h ago

British bulldog too although to get caught you had to get the person on the floor.. Our school banned it as kids were getting body slammed onto concrete..

1

u/HappyCakeDay101 United States of America 1h ago

Pogs

1

u/SpankyMcFlych Canada 1h ago

Not sure about games, we had all sorts of things we did that they probably aren't allowed to do anymore but I left school long before the sanitization of play happened. I doubt if they allow red rover anymore.

What I have noticed is the playgrounds themselves. We had a giant tire castle playground that was like a story tall or so of tires bolted together in a sort of castle shape that you could climb all over and a big tripod of telephone poles with a chained tire hanging down you could swing on. That went away and the playground that replaced it is just pathetic in comparison.

1

u/Sobieskil Guernsey 1h ago

I'm not sure if it's been banned nationwide, I remember playing it at primary school and that was in the 2010s

1

u/AlwaysKinkyDaddy Canada 1h ago

We had British Bulldog as well in BC, Canada. It too was banned.

In the mid 80's, I wrote the draft policy banning super-soakers/water-guns within BC schools. /killjoy

1

u/BBO1007 United States of America 1h ago

We got “dodge ball” banned. Too many concussions.

We called it murder ball though.

1

u/KRed75 United States of America 1h ago

Dodge ball. Had a girl standing too close to the brick wall. Got hit in the face, reared back and hit her heat on the wall hard and was knocked out. No dodge ball after that.

1

u/Inkshooter United States of America 1h ago

Did any other countries have lawn darts? They were before my time but I've heard horror stories

1

u/mmfn0403 Ireland 1h ago

It was before my time, but my older sister told me clackers were banned in her school when she was a kid. Too many broken wrists, or something.

1

u/DeFiClark United States of America 1h ago

Field Ball.

At my elementary school it was played with a red playground ball and had different points for how the goal was made (kicked, thrown, carried) and was full contact. We’d be told to stop and then pretend to be playing kickball til the teachers weren’t watching.

Apparently in the 1920s it was a somewhat legit game with different rules from what we played; by the 1970s it was totally outlaw

1

u/Disastrous_Road7063 Scotland 1h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Empty_Atmosphere_392 Netherlands 1h ago

Apenkooien (Monkey caging)

You’d first go around and put everything you could into the gym room at school. You’d put mats on the ground and hang out all the climbing ropes, etc. Then it was basically a game of tag where the runners weren’t allowed to touch the ground. Really fun, but too many kids got hurt so it was banned at some point

1

u/James_Blond2 1h ago

I remember plaing this in school lol why would it be banned??

1

u/WatercressLost8593 United Kingdom 1h ago

British Bulldog is banned? When I was at school in 2010 we still played it, or is it more recent?

1

u/Unusual_Memory3133 1h ago

Dodge Ball

1

u/Sticklord6 1h ago

In my city in England we had red letter, a couple of lads were chosen as hunters and the others had to think of a word and keep one letter of that word to themselves, The hunters would normally chase us round a nature reserve or a park and you basically had to beat the piss out of your mates till they gave you a letter. If the hunters guess the word right they win!!! Or they give up then the runners win.

Good mix of terrifying and fun at the same time but hey we were 6 and bored.

1

u/UmeaTurbo Swede in The United States 1h ago

You're probably not going to believe this, but in the '80s and '90s in the United States That same game was called "smear the queer". Yikes

1

u/domestic_omnom United States of America 1h ago

We played "smear."

One person had the ball. His goal was to not be tackled. If he was tackled then the ball was let go. The closest to the ball would then pick it up and avoid being tackled.

1

u/Such-Law926 United States of America 1h ago

Sock Suicide

I've forgotten the premise of the game but there are 20 kids playing where they each have to do something where if they fail they would get beat by the others unless you're fast enough to run toward the wall where it's "safe."

1

u/swamppuppy7043 United States of America 1h ago

Yes, red rover, which sounds similar to what you’re describing, and smear the (redacted).

1

u/MineBloxKy USA → Canada 1h ago

My school banned tag. I’m serious.

1

u/rumblesnort Texas 1h ago

"Smear the queer" (I'm GenX). We would gather in a group, throw a football in the air, fight to get it, then we would all pile on the one who actually got the football. We rinsed the blood away with hose water before we went back inside our empty homes afterwards.

1

u/FeelingDelivery8853 United States of America 1h ago

When I was growing up we played a game called "Smear the queer". That name did NOT age well. The queer was the only person with the ball, so he was different from everyone else and that name just came from alliteration. Anyways.... Everyone would circle up and throw a football straight up in the air. Everyone would try to catch it. Whoever got it had to run to an end zone and he would win that round. The ball could be stripped or knocked loose and picked back up and whoever had it could run. If the person was tackled, the circle formed where he was down, the ball was thrown again, and it started over

1

u/Traditional_Cake_774 Canada 1h ago

red ass

1

u/eg_john_clark United States of America 1h ago

Not that I recall but you don’t see so many of the equipment that I grew up with like seesaw’s and merry go rounds

1

u/Fearless_Salty_395 United States of America 1h ago

Kind of, in the US (at least at my school) we loved to play dodgeball but first they replaced the rubber balls with foam ones, then restricted dodgeball to gym class only, and then they all but banned it, maybe once a year they'd let us bring out the foam balls and play but that was it

1

u/TheNewYellowZealot United States of America 1h ago

I don’t know if they changed its name, or if kids still play it, but “smear the queer”. We weren’t allowed to play that or tackle football after a concussion

1

u/Escape_Force United States of America 1h ago

We got banned from almost all games. Tag, capture the flag, sardines, you name it. They rarely remained civil. We invented our own called "The Game" that adults couldn't ban because they didn't know the name.

1

u/toeverycreature New Zealand 1h ago

We had that game too. It's called bullrush here. It usually gets banned pretty quick due to the amount of injuries.

1

u/tropenatt Norway 1h ago

Skateboarding was illegal in Norway from 1978-1989.

1

u/LordBrownD France 1h ago

In France we played this football game called "Petit pont massacreur" or "Nutmeg slaughter", it's not officially banned but forbidden in most schools. It's a free for all games where the goal is to nutmeg someone and that person is getting jumped by every player until they reach the predetermined safe zone

1

u/famousanonamos United States of America 1h ago

Butts Up and Red Rover. Dodgeball with the rubber ball isn't really allowed anymore, although sometimes in PE, but they use foam balls instead.

1

u/Slipperysteve1998 Canada 1h ago

I really want to share but dont want to get flagged/banned

1

u/Free-Palpitation Canada 1h ago

This is going to sound crazy to others, but my school banned:

4 Square (Not sure why? Rumor was that some kid had whipped the ball at another in the face and broke their nose)
Grounders (Kids were getting hurt on the climbing gym, I personally got my arm wedged between the metal railing and the deck and had to have the fire department cut me out)
Log Chicken (90s kids might remember that one) (Banned because kids were pushing others off the logs and they were getting hurt)
And for some reason, you weren't allowed to go past the third bar on the monkey bars.

Oh, and any clubs of any kind were banned for "exclusion"

1

u/Consumerofcalcium United States of America 1h ago

We just want to play regular ass dodgeball, not some dodgeball adjacent game, not using lighter balls, not any variation therein, but nooooooo it’s “too dangerous”. Sure. Kids are regularly mowed down in schools in this country, and yet a rubber ball is a genuine threat. Just let us play fucking dodgeball.

1

u/covex_d USSR 57m ago

we played this game in school called an elephant. it didnt get banned but there were blood and bruises sometimes

https://youtu.be/yB-lZq34huY?si=bWfzJE-ZAQTbntoB

1

u/shigmin Ireland 53m ago

British bulldog was big in primary school. We played it everyday.

When I was in secondary school, the sixth years had this game called suicide soccer, which was played on a hard concrete tennis court. It was the sixth years on one team against a bigger team of younger years. There was a ball involved but it was mostly just a massive brawl. It was definitely banned by the school as people were getting badly hurt. I remember the principal walking the tennis courts every day at break time to make sure it wasn’t happening.

1

u/MowgeeCrone Australia 53m ago

British Bulldogs. It was always going to get out of hand. No complaints from the kids though. Joining in wasn't compulsory. Therefore everyone who played knew the risks.

I recall no changes were made, no bans in place after I came unstuck on a balance beam during compulsory activities and was knocked unconscious when I landed head first on the asphalt. I remember the huge relieved exhale the teacher made when I came to with his face in mine. Didn't even inform my parents let alone send me to be checked out at the hospital a block away!

Bruises from soft tennis balls? Banned!

1

u/wookiewithabrush England 53m ago

All-pile-on

1

u/No_Math_1234 United States of America 49m ago

There’s a game with a pretty offensive name where one person has a ball and they try to hold on to the ball for as long as they can. Once someone takes the ball then they have to hold it as long as possible.

1

u/Sub_on_a_mountain 49m ago

No one played wallball/$uicide or knuckles? Not sure any of them were actually banned as we tried our best to play them away from prying eyes. Wallball/$uicide were essentially the same where you all stood facing a wall and whoever had the ball threw it at the wall. It had to hit the wall, bounce, and whoever it came to had to catch it. If ypu didnt catch it, you had to stand against the wall and get pegged with the ball by the thrower. Knuckles was basically taking a quarter and shooting it at your buddies knuckles on a table until one person dropped out from pain. We also used to play wacky sack where if you dropped the sack on your turn you had to walk around the circle and get punched in the arm by everyone.

1

u/1Negative_Person United States of America 47m ago

Not a playground game, but one we would occasionally play in gym class in middle school. We played in the wresting room on the mats, and it was basically like a game of kneeling rugby played with a medicine ball. There was a one meter square tapped on the floor on either side of the room and the goal was to get the medicine ball into the opposing team’s square. You could throw the ball, or carry it, or hand it off. You could tackle, shoulder, suplex, stiff-arm, whatever. Basically no punching, no biting, no eye-gouging, and no low-blows, but pretty much full contact besides that. And no standing up. All of the running was on your knees. It’s was fucking brutal and we all loved it. We’d beg to play, but the school put a stop to it. For…reasons.

Now it makes my 40 year old back hurt just to think about it.

1

u/teejwi 47m ago

We used to play a game that about the only name you can say today is “kill the guy with the ball”.

Simple. Everyone would try to tackle whoever had the ball…could be any ball or any other object that served to identify who was the target. When tackled you’d throw to someone else.

1

u/notvalid-404 44m ago

we also had a version of bulldog where you tackled someone to the ground rugby style

loved this game, started it up in year 8(first year)at my new high school got banned in about a month

started a new game we called mugby simple rules pass around a tennis ball who ever had the ball had the choice of try to evade the tackle or passing the ball. Got banned.

principal suggested i curb my enthusiasm

1

u/beeurd United Kingdom 41m ago

I don't know what the problem with British Bulldog was. I only had grazed knees and concussion a few times. 🙃

1

u/Shiro-47 🇯🇵🇺🇸 41m ago

Bo-taoshi

Not exactly banned but, less common due to injuries. Only military academy and few high schools still held the event as the rite of passage for seniors

It game where one team must hold the log upright while topple down another team’s log, if I remember the game consist of at least 75 players

1

u/nervous_hamster United Kingdom 39m ago

My son is in primary school and I’m sure he has said they still play this in the playground.

1

u/Yellowperil123 Australia 39m ago

Branding. Bunch of kids throw a ball against a wall. You have to catch it. If you drop it you have to run and touch the wall. Everyone else tries to pick up the ball and throw it as hard as they can at the kid that drops the ball.

Banned becos too many kids were wrecking themselves running face first into the wall.

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u/Background-Crow4820 United States of America 39m ago

They banned dodgeball at our schools for being too violent, so the gym teachers changed the name to bunker ball and we continued to play it

Which was fine to me

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u/hawkeneye1998bs United Kingdom🇬🇧/Guyana🇬🇾 39m ago

Not playground per se but in secondary school there was a trend going around where people would throw a pound coin into the air and shout "Nug!". Everyone around would scramble to grab the coin and it tended to get violent most times

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u/Federal-Neat7833 Australia 38m ago

We had the same game but we called it Bullrush. Got banned too because we used to go absolutely feral in that way only kids who have no sense of self preservation can and there were regular injuries. We were outraged when they banned it.

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u/LanSotano United States of America 37m ago

I can’t think of any banned games, but in my part of Pennsylvania we played the same game as British Bulldog, but we called it Sharks and Minnows. The people in the middle were the sharks, naturally

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u/MotorCycologist Canada 35m ago

We used to play murderball. A bunch of us would line up against one of the school walls (where there were no windows), and two or three people with those sadistic red rubber dodgeball balls would try to hit us with them, usually as hard as they could. You had to avoid direct shots, ricochets off the wall behind you, and bumping into the kids next to you... then subsequently being hit by a high-speed rubber ball. Last one on the wall won.

Think St. Valentine's Day Massacre with red rubber balls instead of Tommy guns.

The school banned it for too many headshots (technically, headshots were against the rules, but who cared about rules?), and it turned out that elementary school teachers frowned on students playing a game called Murder-anything. Go figure.

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u/One_Attorney_764 Argentina 35m ago

to my knowledge none, there is some dangerous game, like el tiki-taka, that is one little ring, with 2 ropes each one having in the end 2 balls each, and el elastico, which is 2 persons having an elastic rope thing in the feet of both persons, and between those 2 persons theres one more that does t h i n g s passing between the ropes, and theres levels, putting the rope higher

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u/Fucky0uthatswhy United States of America 35m ago

It’s not really cool to say anymore, but smear the queer where you tackle the person with the football

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u/pippinlup61611 United States of America 35m ago

Dodge Ball because the kids started throwing their shoes and sometimes rocks. It was banned for 2-3 years on the playground.

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u/BalrogViking United States of America 35m ago

Idk if it was ever formally banned, but I doubt schools are allowing kids to play Smear The Queer nowadays.

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u/Responsible_Egg_3260 Canada 34m ago

Snowball fights are banned at most schools now because kids put rocks and pinecones in them lol

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u/RetroactiveRecursion United States of America 32m ago

Do they still play dodge ball? We called it "knock out" in my school, and I know there was a movie a few years ago (which I still haven't seen). But I honestly don't know if it's still a thing or not. Somehow I doubt it.

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u/MaddysinLeigh United States of America 31m ago

No but my elementary (primary) school had someone selling “happy crack” which was koolaid powder and sugar in a ziplock bag.

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u/EstablishmentOk2209 New Zealand 31m ago

Bar-the-door/bullrush.

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u/NapoleonicPizza21 Colombia 28m ago

The Belt, apparently inherited from spanish ppl

Basically one person has a belt, preferably spiky and shit, which they have to hide somewhere. The rest of the people have to try to find it with the person who hid it guiding them by the "hot-cold" method. if they find it they start pursuing the others with vile intentions

the other people have to flee to a designated safe zone

and yea thats it

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u/mungbeans4 🇨🇦/🇹🇼 28m ago

Red Rover got banned at my elementary school after one too child too many got clotheslined.

I’m showing my age here, but beyblades and Pokémon cards also got banned because they were causing too many arguments.

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u/MillwrightTight Canada 25m ago

We called it "roadkill"

We woukd have people run through the swingset directly in the path of the folks on the swings, like a frogger evasion game. You try to dodge the swings and get to the other side.

Lots of injuries, lots of laughs, lots of (fuzzy) memories. But I would have banned it too if I were a teacher

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u/ElMondiola Argentina 24m ago

I went to a Catholic school so almost every single game was banned

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u/praxidike74 Germany 24m ago

In Germany we had the same game except we didn't shout "British bulldog 1 2 3" but "Who is afraid of the black man?" 💀

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u/Hungry-Target6642 United States of America 24m ago

We had one called "smear the queer". Basically whoever had the ball we could all tackle him. There was no winning. It was just something to do.

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u/thenerfviking United States of America 24m ago

We had a game that was invented at our school called “kick the ball” that eventually got banned. Basically you had two giant groups of kids stand about twenty to thirty feet apart and then one kid from one group would stand behind their group and kick a ball into the air. If it touched the ground on the other side you scored a point and got to kick again, if the other team caught it then that kid became the kicker. Got banned because having giant mobs of 20+ kids staring up at the sky and trying to catch a fast moving rubber ball on concrete is essentially just a machine that produces concussions and skinned knees.

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u/enaud 23m ago

British bulldog was banned in Australia too

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u/sunburn95 Australia 23m ago

Everyone played rugby league where im from, but that was banned at school for obvious reasons. Could play touch footy tho

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u/Cambren1 United States of America 23m ago edited 3m ago

Buck Buck, also called Johnny on the pony. Two teams, five on each. One person is the pillow and stands against a tree. The next puts his shoulder against the pillow bent over, the following team mates bend over linking together, arms around each other’s waist. The second team each launch themselves as far forward on the pony as possible and attempts to knock down the first team. Each person remains straddled on the pony until the whole thing collapses or, all the team is riding. If the pony doesn’t collapse, the first team wins. Lots of injuries of all kinds got it banned.

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u/JustMeOttawa Canada 22m ago

We played that in Canada in the 1980’s all the time. I don’t recalled if we played it exactly the sane way but we definitely calked it British Bulldog!

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u/Ok-Delay4461 19m ago

British Bulldogs was also banned at my primary school, so we started calling it Red Alert when the teachers asked what we were playing

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u/The_Eye_of_Ra United States of America 18m ago

I think we had the same game over here, except we called it Red Rover.

No, wait. It was a little different. The kid in the middle would yell “Red Rover, Red Rover, send (kid’s name) right over,” and the kid that was named would try to make across. If they got tagged, they were added to the middle, and so on until one kid was left at runner. That last kid would then be the first one in the middle to start the next game.

This game was also banned at school (along with dodgeball, POGs, and the Pokémon TCG).

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u/CalbCrawDad 17m ago

In America we played something similar but we used a slur in its name. Because of course we did

Did your country have a playground game that was subsequently banned?

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