Reply With QuoteYou left out “allies” in the gutter and was it “jacks” ????? 5 stones on the back of your hand (posh kids had the metal type)
| + Visit Cardiff FC for Latest News, Transfer Gossip, Fixtures and Match Results |
Reading ToBW’s memories of playing bits of Tennis and Pitch and put when the relative sports were on TV, got me thinking.
When I was a kid, before Play stations, Xboxes, and mobile phones were around, and everywhere was fields 😂, me and my fellow Elyites, would pass the time playing 9 hole golf at Ely race course, outdoor bowls at the green in Plymouthwood Rd, tennis (at the same park as the bowling green, swimming at Empire pool and darts in anyone’s house whose Mum would let them put a dart board up.
Nothing seemed expensive then, as none of us had much dough anyway.
Used to save up and sometimes buy a putter or an iron at Giles Sports, and used to frequent Fry’s darts shop in Caroline St to buy stems and flights.
My Aunty used to work on the till in Asteys, so after coming out of Empire pool we’d nip over there and if she was on, we’d get a free bottle of pop and crisps.
Another favourite in the warm weather was swimming in Ely River. To this day, can’t believe I survived that 😂
Saturday mornings at the Regent cinema, watching Flash Gordon and cartoons was another great memory. The mass exodus downtown the steep steps of the cinema when it finished was more dangerous than a F1 race.
If you fell, you were history!
Used to play cricket up at Ely Rec. One day we’d acquired a real cricket ball. I was batting, and caught one as sweet as a nut, only for it to smash into the face of the hardest kid in Ely at the time. I didn’t hang about to see if he still had any teeth left, I just dropped the bat and ran home as quick as a rat up a drain pipe.
Being from the bottom of Ely, we’d regularly fight with the top of Ely, and sometimes we’d amalgamate and fight Fairwater and Pentrebane in Birdies Lane.
I remember one particular day we were scrapping with Fairwater, and I had a brand new pair of shoes on my Mum had bought me. We were a bit outnumbered that day, and as we retreated back a bit, I noticed one of my new shoes had come off during the scrap.
I had to quickly decide the easiest option. Go get my shoe back and risk a bit of a kicking, or go home and face my Mum. I decided it would be less painful to retrieve the shoe 😂
Don’t know why I’m rambling on about yrs gone but it’s a Sunday morning, so why not.
You left out “allies” in the gutter and was it “jacks” ????? 5 stones on the back of your hand (posh kids had the metal type)
GobsOriginally Posted by BLUETIT
Curbs
I used to occasionally walk to the Regent to watch the Saturday morning shows. Birdies Lane was usually quiet at that time of day, but it wasn't always and so discretion became the better part of valour on those days as there was never more than four of us and we figured Flash Gordon could wait till next week as he wasn't worth getting filled in for.
My main memory of playing with a real cricket ball came on a day when there were street parties for some reason. We had a "proper" cricket game as part of the celebration and I opened the batting with someone who always played baseball and could hit the ball miles. i remember we put on fifty of which my share was four before I was given out LBW from a delivery which hit me in the balls. Given I was only about five foot tall at the time, I probably was out, but that was no consolation as I was helped off in agony with most of the fairly big crowd watching no doubt thinking "I'm glad that blocker's out".
Is that Marbles?
My Mother, from Pill always called them arlees.
During the summer in parks and fields there were always games of cricket going on with youngsters.
Never see it these days.
Anything with wheels! Living in a rural area, with woods, ponds & quarries. Initially without an engine, then later with. 2, 3 or 4 wheels.
Bogeys!!! I forgot about them. Had a few of those over the yrs. scaffold plank, 4 wheels (sometimes all the same size,) cross frame with rope or string to steer, no brakes.
About 10 of us all made bikes one summer, from old frames, and bits of other old bikes we could get our hands on. Planned a big day out to Barry Island to test them. Got halfway down Plymouthwood Rd hill, when I hear my mate Reggie Cann, shouting out from behind me “ get out of the fuc*ing way!! I look, and his handle bars have fallen off and he’s trying to steer with the forks!!
I heard it as 'alleys'.
Go over Glan Ely fields fields with a football and play for hours on end.
One of my favourite memories as a kid was playing cricket in the yard at Cilfynydd Primary with a “Corkie”. One of the boys hit it over the railings and smashed the glass in his parents front door. He ran down to the house and was having a massive bollocking off his mother. We were shouting down to him to throw the ball back to us in the yard so we could carry on with our test match. Unfortunately he didn’t come far enough out of the house to throw it and threw it through the fanlight above the door smashing that too. I think at that point the test match was abandoned as we were pissing ourselves laughing too much!!
Throwing Dutch-arrows. Those things could really travel quite a distance.
Skateboards, made out of those really crap adjustable rollerskates with the nut in the middle, and the hard composite wheels that barely turned.
Clackers - which eventually got banned, as so many kids got injured.
GAT guns (preferably the all-chrome one). I took one to school once, because a boy in one of the remedial classes wanted to buy it from me. I got summoned to the headmaster's room at lunchtime. The boy had fired a pellet at another pupil (that would be sensationalised these days as a major school shooting incident). I should have known he wasn't the responsible type
Alleys (sp?) and their bigger cousins.... 'bompers'.
Anyone else remember the craze of tightening two bolts together onto a central nut that was filled with matchheads? The secret was to just nip the matchheads and then throw it to the floor and watch it explode upwards of 50 ft in the air. Everyone was doing this in my high school playground!
Also, to my shame - going out armed with a flat-head screwdriver and nicking car badges. We'd swap them in school later.
I realise that some of my choices aren't really games, but they kept us occupied for hours and hours.
Only thinking about them last week.
I used to be with the 4th Whitchurch Scouts (poor relation of 1st Whitchurch) near Forest Farm and Melingriffith canal ... making the Datch arrows was part of the Bush Craft badge!
They did go a long way if the release was just right. Were they a hunting method a few centuries ago?
Apart from getting a straight stick and some string, I forget how to make them fly. Any ideas?
Scrumping in the large gardens of Cyncoed, usually before the fruit was ripe!
Tennis?
Pitch and putt?
Posh git.
We called those big ball bearings used with marbles "bompers" too.
Way up the top of the Ebbw valley, we made "gambos", a lethal go-cart type thing out of a plank and some pram wheels.
We called them Bompers as well. I had a 30 bumper which I lost to my mates older brother I was gutted. I told his old man that he had forced me to play, and he made him give it back to me.
He said he was gonna kick my head in, but luckily for me he never carried out his threat.
Most were made from bamboo. However, a mate made one from a section of fibreglass fishing rod.
Just make a single cut in the non-pointy end, bend two playing cards in half and insert as flights.
The string needed to have a knot at one end. This would help secure the string about 60% up the body length of the arrow - wrap the surplus string around your hand and at the same time pinch the arrow near to the tip, and..... throw!
The secret seemed to be in the tension of the string.
At a certain time of year I became obsessed with bird nesting.
Thinking back I now realise it was cruel but done out of adolescent curiosity.
It gave me an incredible knowledge of the nature that surrounded me.
Memories of playing cricket over Greenway Park, one of the boys uncles used to join in, he always used to bat last. There were times we wasn’t getting home until gone 9pm as he insisted everyone had to ‘field their innings’
We all did it.
However, you're right, looking back it was wrong to do.
I remember one late summer's evening climbing on the factory roof of Excelsior Ropes on Western Avenue. We were after seagulls' eggs.
We got dive-bombed by the gulls and it must have attracted the attention of people from miles around - not least the company's security guards, who chased after us.
To add insult to injury, we found that we weren't able to blow the eggs because they'd reached the 'yucker' stage.
The same for me the love for nature is still with me today
I'm from Archer Rd originally until I was 14 and then a few years next to the Racecourse before moving away and buying my own house
So Plymouth Woods through to St Fagans, Trelai, Birdie's Lane, The Regent, Grand Avenue, Ely Bridge, Victoria Park were all in walking / bike distance.
Town on the bus for Empire Pool, Sasparilla, Wimpy, Spillers, a platform ticket at Cardiff General/Central (can't remember when it changed).
School at St Francis then Mostyn.
Often ended up playing football off Heol Trelai on the park opposite The Highfields. That was a long haul home when it got dark and cold.
Our house in Archer Rd had an outside toilet (we had one inside as well in the upstairs bathroom).
Did you live anywhere near the Fowlers, when you were at Archer Rd ?
Of course, the owners would pick the ripe fruit themselves
The rich-pickings for us Gabalfa/Llandaff North kids would be the middle-class areas of Whitchurch.
But it would almost always be stomach curling unripe fruit.
Posting Permissions