Pomp, or schoolyard sand-tackling

February 27, 2006 3:38 PM

There was a game I played in elementary school which we called "Pomp." At my school we had a sand field. Weird, I know. One guy would stand in front of everybody and yell "Pomp" and then every­body'd charge towards the other side of the sand and the 'pomp'-yelling guy would try to tackle somebody. Kind of a smearthequeer thing.

After everybody had crossed the 'endzone' - the guy (or girl, everybody played) who got tackled and the first guy would yell 'pomp' again and back they'd all charge...toward the other 'endzone.'

and the tack­ling'd go on and on until only one bastard was still standing ... and then he'd be the first guy to yell "pomp"
in the next game.

What the hell is this game? Does anybody have similar stories...histories etc.?
~cheers~

posted by punkbitch to sports, hobbies, & recreation (34 comments total)

It sounds a little bit like British Bulldog.
posted by zadcat at 3:42 PM on February 27, 2006

that's pretty amazing zadcat. you pretty much nailed it. i wonder how old it is...
posted by punkbitch at 3:44 PM on February 27, 2006

Even better, Red Rover is said to be sometimes called Pom.
posted by zadcat at 3:45 PM on February 27, 2006

I bet these are very old. You don't even need a ball.
posted by zadcat at 3:46 PM on February 27, 2006

Reminds me of octopus tag. Mind you, I played this at an older age than this site recommends, with more violence.

Playing Area: Gym or Outdoors
Equipment: None (just willing kids!)
Setup: Mark off a sizable rectangle, and build a "safe zone" at both ends of playing field.
Objective: To stay unforzen for as long as possible.
How to play: This is a good game to play in side. If you happen to play it outside, make sure the boundaries are reasonable because if the area of play is too large, it won't be as much fun. Make a safe zone at both ends of the boundaries and place the person who is "it", right between the bounds. All the other players stand at one of the safe zones. The person who is "it" yells, "Anything out there for dinner?!" and everyone else tries to run for the opposite safe zone. Then "it" runs around and tags who ever they can. When someone is tagged, they have to sit down on the spot where they were tagged. The next time everybody runs, these players have to try to tag the runners, using only their arms, but they have to stay seated. Everybody keeps running back and forth through the "Octopus Field" until only one person is left; next round, they're "it".
http://www.internationalsport.com/nsd/packet/games.html

posted by tiamat at 3:46 PM on February 27, 2006

Sounds like British Bulldog to me too. It was banned at every primary school I went to.
posted by andraste at 4:27 PM on February 27, 2006

We played Bulldogs most days in school. It got quite brutal. Lots of ripped clothes, ripped skin and bent-back fingers.

A similar game is Relievio (or Rallyo, as we called it in Derbyshire). Two walled surfaces are required - a safe wall and a prison wall. One person is 'on', everyone else starts off on the safe wall. Eventually some show-off will get bored and leave the safe wall, taunting the 'on' guy and invariably he'll get a bit complacent and get caught (to be caught, you have to cling onto someone or their clothes while chanting 'RALLYO ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE' - if he wriggles loose before you get to five, he's free, so get the words out as fast as you can - RALLYOWONTTHREFFIE). Caught people get taken to the prison wall, and can only be freed by someone else charging across and touching the wall. Towards the end of the game, when the prison wall is full and there are only one or two free kids left, the tension is delicious. There's silence, and stillness, save for some wheezing from the weak-chested boys, and the freemen look the prison guard straight in the eye for minutes on end from opposite sides of the playground, trying to break them. Kids opt for different tactics depending on their build and speed - big ones tend to charge, relying on momentum to get them through to the prison wall before being caught, others rely on nimble-footed trickery and ducking, weaving, bobbing and shimmying. It's a beautiful thing to be involved in. And if that one remaining freeman gets through and frees all the prisoners, well, the flood of freshly-released convicts is like the Hoover Dam opening up.

I'd like to see this kind of thing played by grown-ups. If Kabaddi can be successful, then I'm sure Bulldogs and Rallyo can too.
posted by nylon at 4:43 PM on February 27, 2006

Oh yes, and in order to initiate a game of Bulldogs or Rallyo, two or more kids would march round the playground with arms around each others shoulders chanting 'IF YOU WANT TO PLAY BULLDOGS, ALL JOIN ON'. Interested parties would join this Riverdance line at the most convenient end for them until it reached some kind of critical mass, and then it'd suddenly explode and the last one to reach the safe wall was on.
posted by nylon at 4:48 PM on February 27, 2006

Aw man, British Bulldog, I remember playing that game when I lived in Scotland.
posted by cloeburner at 4:55 PM on February 27, 2006

Wow, nylon, sounds like we went to the same school. We called it "Relievers", tho'.

And if any other mefite gets a chance to see kabaddi, it's insanely wonderful. Think Major League Tig.
posted by scruss at 5:27 PM on February 27, 2006

British Bulldog!! I remember it well. (More common in....Britain, it seems.)
posted by fire&wings at 6:14 PM on February 27, 2006

Ah, I loved that game, played it in the mid '70s in Newfoundland... not at school, doubt they allowed it. Was pretty good at it too as I recall, had my growth spurt early so was a bit bigger than most of the other kids, man some of those tackles...
posted by edgeways at 6:40 PM on February 27, 2006

I played this exact game, down to every last detail you mentioned. It was even called Pomp. All these years I have assumed that someone at our elementary school invented the game, or at least invented the name for it. I've tried to explain the game to my wife and to friends who grew up in other places, but no one shares my memory. It's nice to find out that someone else knows what I'm talking about!

Thanks for the flashback.
posted by lewistate at 6:57 PM on February 27, 2006

I played it (British Bulldog) in grade school in Ottawa, Canada. Grass field and tagging instead of tackling (usually).
posted by winston at 8:07 PM on February 27, 2006

Called overlopertje at my school in the Netherlands.
Tagging instead of tackling.
posted by jouke at 8:57 PM on February 27, 2006

In Alabama, we called it "Devil in the Ditch", and there was definitely tackling involved.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:32 PM on February 27, 2006

For us that was British Bulldog, whch was semi-banned. Red Rover was where one line of kids linked their arms and another line tried to run around or break through it to reach "home". If you got caught you had to join the line. One new kid became instantly popular in the 4th grade by diving over the Red Rover line, landing in a forward roll and sprinting for home. We all thought he was a ninja or something.
posted by fshgrl at 9:41 PM on February 27, 2006

We played British Bulldogs in Bath in 1978 too. It was exactly like that. My secret was to pretend that I had already been tagged, and I would sort of mix with the taggers, which would lead them to ignore me. Then, at the last possible second, I would lep to the other side, to everybody's anger.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:54 PM on February 27, 2006

We played British Bulldogs in Bath in 1978 too. It was exactly like that. My secret was to pretend that I had already been tagged, and I would sort of mix with the taggers, which would lead them to ignore me. Then, at the last possible second, I would leap to the other side, to everybody's anger.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:55 PM on February 27, 2006

punkbitch, I should have thought of this sooner, but I just checked your profile and saw that you're living in Salt Lake City. The place where I played Pomp? Price, Utah. Coincidence? Perhaps the name Pomp is a regionalism for what everyone else seems to be calling British Bulldog.
posted by lewistate at 10:00 PM on February 27, 2006

I played British Bulldog in California, in the version we played you had to lift someone completely off the ground to "tag" them. It was of course banned and we switched to playing Red Rover, which was naturally also banned shortly thereafter.
posted by cali at 10:22 PM on February 27, 2006

Australia, late sixties, British Bulldog, banned.
posted by flabdablet at 11:00 PM on February 27, 2006

New Zealand late 1980s banned. We called it bullrush though (makes more sense than bulldog if you ask me).
posted by scodger at 11:42 PM on February 27, 2006

I always found it strange that it was called British Bulldogs when we were in Britain. I mean, we don't call Mionopoly "American Monopoly."
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:48 PM on February 27, 2006

It's 'bullrush' in Australia too. Surprisingly enough, not only was it not banned, but many after-school places I went to in my youth seemed to encourage it.
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 2:00 AM on February 28, 2006

Ahhh British Bulldog. We used to play it in junior high in Mississauga, Ontario, on a football field that wasn't on school property (since it was banned by the school). We had to hop a fence to get onto the field, and the owners of the field would come and chase us off once a week or so. It was great. I don't think ANYBODY ever got hurt, the worst to happen would be some grass stains on the clothes.
posted by antifuse at 3:17 AM on February 28, 2006

We called it British Bulldog in Michigan. I'm actually surprised that it gets the same name in Britain. I'd have guessed it was as British as french fries are French.
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:02 AM on February 28, 2006

Bullrush in Arkansas. I lost two teeth to Red Rover. Good times!
posted by Marit at 5:42 AM on February 28, 2006

British Bulldog in southern Ontario, banned.

Tried playing "touch" version after tackle was banned but it didn't satisfy and was thereafter abandoned.
posted by skinnydipp at 7:05 AM on February 28, 2006

smearthequeer?
posted by agregoli at 7:25 AM on February 28, 2006

growing up in the midwest (southern Ohio) we definitely called this smearthequeer and since it was banned by the school we played it afterhours in a vacant lot full of (among other things) metal junk and broken glass. good times.
posted by lonefrontranger at 8:25 AM on February 28, 2006

Just outside of Montreal, we played this in a pool. The 'Bulldog' would tread water in the middle of the deep end of an olympic-sized pool, with all the other swimmers lined up on one side, standing on a concrete ledge. When the 'bulldog' called out, everyone dove underwater. The object was to make it to the other end without coming up for air. The bulldog's job was to drag you up to the surface. If you surfaced and the bulldog was touching you, you joined him in the center. Many cracked heads, jammed fingers and bloody noses ensued. It was awesome.
posted by deadtrouble at 11:30 AM on February 28, 2006

We called it British Bulldogs and that was Tennessee and Alabama. We especially called it bulldogs, plural, after the pro wrestling tag team came out.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:54 AM on February 28, 2006

hey lewistate. no, I'm from salt lake, but played at my catholic elementary school. any parochial connection? cheers! how odd!
posted by punkbitch at 3:14 PM on March 3, 2006