I grew up in a time when we did a ton of stuff outside. We had electronics, but they couldn't really hold your attention for very long. I'm not trying to be some guy that is claiming the new generation sucks or anything, I am just stating a fact. Our tech wasn't very good back when I was a kid and therefore we had to pursue other things. Most of the time this incorporated going outside and finding some friends (or making new ones) and getting a game of pick up something going.
At school, it was a lot easier at recess or if you don't know what that is, it was a time period, normally after lunch, where all the kids were allowed outside to play and do whatever they wanted basically. It was not a huge amount of time, probably only 30 minutes or so, so we had to be organized if we were going to get anything done.
one of the easiest games to get organized quickly was "Red Rover." Looking back on this game I am surprised that teachers just stood by and allowed this quite violent game to happen, but we loved it.
I saw a post on Reddit entitled "does anyone remember playing Red Rover before it was banned?" and I am not at all surprised it was banned.
This game consisted of picking teams and having everyone line up across from one another like above and the team on one side would chant "Red Rover, Red Rover, sent Kevin on over!"(or whoever was opposite them - it was their choice). Then Kevin would run as fast as he could at the opposite team and attempt to bust through their connected hands.
If Kevin made it through the line, he "won" that round and would take himself and one of the people on the ends back to his side. If he didn't make it through or failed to make the two people break their hand-lock, he now became a member of that team and joined the linked hands on the end.
The game continued, alternating the sides calling out one another until one team was completely eliminated.
Now this is obviously a terribly dangerous game. The opportunity for a human body ramming into two connected hands has the opportunity to break bones and dislocate shoulders. But we weren't concerned with such things at the time. I am sure some people were injured during our games but part of the fun was concealing that you were hurt and just carrying on. I don't know of anyone that actually did break bones but I can see why this sport was something that schools decided to get rid of. It's a shame though because this was a real bonding exercise because you were kind of forced to become friends with a bunch of people who might have been strangers at the start of it. It also enforced remembering people's names so in that regard it was a great team-building exercise.
It's just unfortunate that it had such a wonderful opportunity for injury especially if people did things like the last image suggest and clothesline (hit the person in the head or throat intentionally) the person that was heading towards you.
You never really knew where the person was going to ram and often people would aim for the two girls that had their hands connected. But breaking up a couple of weak handshakes wasn't necessarily good for your team because at that point you are putting a weak handshake on your team, which doesn't really benefit anyone.
I don't recall if any of these games actually got played to conclusion, there are a lot of reasons why the game could have just played on forever with the weaker members constantly changing teams until you ran out of time.
It was a lot of fun and athletic prowess wasn't really that much of a factor. often, the fat kids would end up being the best at it because a big guy or girl ramming into a couple of hands is going to break through those hands rather easily.
Apparently it was banned in many N. American schools in the early 90s and there was a lawsuit filed in California (surprise surprise) where parents sued a school for tens of thousands of dollars and won. We can't do anything fun anymore can we?
Dodgeball was banned at around the same time and that was an amazing game too. If you can still hear the sound of that ball barely missing your head as you ran by, you probably had a childhood similar to my own.
Did you play Red Rover? I loved that game