Silly Army Sunday 29th May

It was a small but fun gathering of members at The Silly Army last Sunday, the grey, overcast weather and the bank holiday perhaps contributing factors. However, there were still enough players for plenty of silly games.

Tennis. A gentleman's game.

After Pete and Dave played a gentlemanly game of tennis while the troops practised their hockey shooting, it was time for a game of Hockey proper. The management of Dave, Pete and Kaye, along with Alex M, took on the yellow team of Steph, Duncan, Matt and Helen. While the wonky fingered keeper in the red goal made several valiant saves and Alex was all over the pitch, the addition of the two old men on the team made it somewhat unevenly matched (particularly as Pete frequently forgot how to move and Dave was clinically dead at least twice, but still kept playing. . . )

The yellow team were working better as a unit rather than relying on one plucky player out in the field, and so they quickly took the lead and the game.

We attempted to play ‘Proper’ football after a while but gave up quite quickly as it was a bit too scary. Much enjoyment came from the grunting and football chav impersonations, however. Erik joined us during this time and was one of the few who could actually play footie. The score at 3-1 and nobody sure who was on which team, we abandoned this game in favour of Sticky Ball.

The yellow team played as a unit.

This time we mixed the old men up a bit (that is, put one on each side) and this seemed to work, as the yellows stormed the first game and the blues took the second (although the strong wind may have had something to do with this). “Mrs Machine” in particular was a star for the blue team. It was, however, the yellows who took the third for the match, although there was just one ball in it. Special commendation to Lauren for turning up with cakes during the game!

Next up we had som e Tchouckball, which was a tricky game on a big pitch with so few players. Again it was tight but the yellow team edged it with some good partnerships between the Machine, Steph, Kaye and Pete.

We were going to play some Kubb for the remainder of the afternoon, but Erik, Pete and Matt became a little too absorbed in a Lego Star Wars sticker album and began covering all toys, cars and anything that moved in stickers…

Come join The Silly Army in King’s Park, Bournemouth, from 7pm on Wednesday evenings and 1pm on Sunday afternoons for fun and games of a silly nature. It’s free, a charity and open to anyone aged 18 and over.

Silly Army Games For Party On Boscombe Pier

The Silly Army are organising the games for Boscombe’s Party on the Pier on Saturday 12 March. In partnership with Inspieration Friends of Boscombe Pier group, the Sillies will be running a combination of It’s A Knockout and Crystal Maze style games for teams of five.

We’re still looking for teams to take part – anyone aged 18 or over is welcome to try out the games, that range from fishing for giant Velcro fish to giant Shove Ha’Penny, Bridging the Gap to Unexploded Bomb.

Pete, Kaye and Dave have been busy making new toys for the big day, helped by Pat (who must be commended for his superb fish), Rob and Alan. Many of the games are made from recycled materials.

Deadline for team registration is 5th March, so get in fast. To register, please email admin@inspieration.org or telephone 07812 163624.

There will also be music from Gugge and a chance to try trikke carve riding.

Own Goals, Hard Balls And A (Monkey) Toss Off At Silly Army

It was a cold, damp and slippery King’s Park that greeted The Silly Army on Sunday afternoon, but despite the slightly overcast conditions there was a good turn-out of players enduring enjoying the crisp conditions.

Big Tennis is one of the most popular Silly Army games.

We were slightly late setting up due to some members enjoying enduring a thrilling Saturday evening sorting through the accounts in preparation for grant applications. However, many hands do light work make and  – after a random outbreak of Volleyball that was quickly tempered by hard balls – we soon had a game of Big Tennis underway, won by Team Helen.

With rapidly increasing numbers we opted to play a runaround next and went for Hockey. Despite the vast majority of the strongest Hockey Players being on the red team, this was a close fought and long match, with play being in one end for some time before switching to the other. Pete and Paul showed off excellent goal keeping skills in the red end while K took her usual position in goal for the yellows.

Jolly hockey sticks. Picture by Aleksandra Dimitrova.

After the score had been locked at 2-2 for some time, and because of increasingly limited time due to shortening days, we decided next goal would win and a brave battle ensued. The match was eventually sealed with the reds taking victory, thanks to a lovely blooper of an own goal from yellow dynamo Nick.

Following a spot of Double Dodgeball in a strangely shaped circle, where even Giles’s flexibility couldn’t save him in the slippery conditions, we played Combi Ball.

Because two balls are better than one. Particularly when they're both purple, and one is sausage shaped. Picture by Aleksandra Dimitrova.

Pete, remembering being on the losing side with the embarrassing score of zero last time we played this game, was determined to save some face this week and opened up the scoring with a nicely kicked goal for the blues. The yellow team made much better use of the field, however, and were better at finding space to quickly take the lead.

This wasn’t good enough for yellow player Helen, however, who bemoaned the scoring of an easy one pointer when she wanted to go for big points, much to the amusement of her own team. The old adage ‘every little helps’ clearly wasn’t on her mind!

The blues did a very good job of catching up, but it was the yellow team who got a deserved victory thanks to some sharp shooting. At least Pete and the rest of the bluesers could trudge off without egg on their faces, however, as they had played well, though they did have mud on their trousers due to lots of falling over (a Silly Army art form unto itself).

Sticky Ball looked like being a bit of an embarrassing defeat when the yellows shot out of the stocks and instantly scored three to take the first game. However, the blues battled back in the second game and for a long time nobody seemed to be able to get a ball on the board despite good play from both teams. K eventually opened the scoring for the blues on second attempt, but it was the yellow team who won this game too.

Loopy Lobbing, the game of throwing circular discs at each other, was next and top marks must go to Tori for her ‘Throw all and be damned’ method – which worked rather well! Helen and Alex also showed great skill at this game.

Team captains Tori and Viv got to chose who they thought were the best tossers in The Silly Army. A difficult choice indeed! Picture by Steph Mills.

Viv requested a tea break, but sadly our great Treasurer has vetoed tea for the time being, so we moved on to Monkey Toss. Tori and Viv were crowned team captains and the cringe-producing team picking method was employed.

Both girls picked well and, despite some off tossing from some of our top tossers to begin with, though Tori’s team took the lead Viv’s team forced a draw. That meant only one thing: it was time for a Toss Off.

Picking the windy end of the park (obviously) five tossers from each team lined up to chuck their mustard monkeys. However, Helen’s toss went horribly wrong and the resulting score was 5-4 to Tori’s team.

Shock of the game still has to be K managing to outrun Giles.

There was just enough time for another game of Big Tennis, during which Pete abandoned his team to join ‘Pedal Car’ Alan and Richard in Bike Club. But the neglected team of Viv, Giles and K proved they didn’t need their esteemed leader after all and won the game.

Silly Army games will be taking place tomorrow (Wednesday) in the YMCA, Westover Road, from 7pm – come and join us, it’s warm and great exercise!

There will also be regular Silly Army Sunday Games in King’s Park from 1pm this Sunday. Come along and toss monkeys – you know it makes sense.

Another sunny Sunday Silly session!

The Silly Army last Sunday.

Despite being described by some nay-sayers at Bournemouth Council as an “underused resource”, King’s Park was again busy on Sunday afternoon as footballers, cyclists, dog walkers, families and runners made the best of the gloriously crisp, sunny day to enjoy the benefits of spending time in green space.

Big Tennis - by far the best way to start a Sunday afternoon in King's Park.

In their new spot in the far corner, The Silly Army were of course out in force, and it was super to see lots of new players as well as many familiar faces. Welcome, Alex, Nick, Matt, Sue and Visiting John – we hope you’ll come and play with us some more!

As has become a tradition with Silly Army, we started our park games session with a game of Big Tennis. The new players all took to this game surprisingly well, quickly showing some of the old hands how it should be done. Due to various late night games, drinking sessions and emergency 1am peppermint tea deliveries, some of the old guard were a little off the ball, and the ball itself was quite frequently off the court as we whacked it here, there and everywhere. However, some good rallies were eventually had, and Karen’s team were the most alert to claim a deserved victory.

Dave proves he has the legs for a netball skirt.

First up on the big pitch was Double Netball, a recently invented game with two very high, very small netball hoops in which you have to toss your balls.

This is a fast game that soon had everybody warmed up in the chilly air. This is a game where the girls tend to excel – Helen in particular an excellent shooter – but the boys proved they were just as comfortable in netball skirts (well, according to what we’ve heard about some of them…) and a tight, frantic game ensued, eventually won by the blue team.

While Dave organised a game of dodgeball, Mrs Doyle’s tea shop opened early – but not for the usual reason of a well-earned tea break. Oh no, the next game was one that hadn’t been played for a while and was new to many of the more recent Silly Army members.

English Football is truly the Beautiful Game. It’s played the way football was intended to be played – with a cup of tea, a saucer and a strategically placed biscuit. The object of the game is to score standard football goals, without spilling your tea or getting a soggy biscuit. Cue lots of mincing as players attempt to keep up with the ball without losing any of the precious brown stuff.

Viv was spectacularly fouled as the ball knocked her cup and saucer clean out of her hand, while Pete played by the book and gained some advantages – drinking his tea, getting a refill and eating not just his own but other team members’ biscuits.

English Football also requires that each player carries an Excuse Me card, which can be presented once to an opposition player, who must oblige by stepping aside. However, not many of the Sillies played this card to their advantage, too focused on keeping their saucers clean. Despite having tea junkies Pete and K on their team, the blue team lost out to the yellows.

There's something wrong with this football game... That's right, everyone needs a nice cup of tea!

Tea was not required for an evenly matched game of hockey, where K’s late night peppermint antics saw her being not particularly on form in the yellow goal. Both the red and yellow strike forces were on good form, though, and K eventually woke up enough to defend in golden goal time by kneeling on the ball, not in the slightest intimidated by Pete’s (joking?!) threat to put leg and ball in the goal. The yellow team struck gold soon after and won the game.

Sticky Ball came next and was again quite evenly matched. The yellows got off to a great start but it was the blues who played better and won the game.

After tea break proper, we played Tchoukball and here the yellow team started off playing far better. Steph, Karen and Paul are among the best players at this game and all were on target. The blues soon picked things up and began to catch up, but this was another yellow victory.

Despite being pursued by two giant shadows, Helen is not distracted during Impossiball.

Next up was another game we hadn’t played for a while, Impossiball. This is a lacrosse style game with home-made racquets that make the transition of the ball somewhat difficult to control. New girl Alex adopted a particularly entertaining method of moving the ball – dragging it behind her along the ground inside the racquet. This proved a rather effective target, and she proved a sharp shooter – scoring an excellent through the hoop goal (worth two points). Yellows however scored the winning goal.

There was time for some tossing with a tense Monkey Toss match, blessedly free of wind this week, which meant the flying monkeys flew better. This was another very close game and it all came down to the last toss. K proved that tossing monkeys is one of her few sporting talents, thus crowning Pete’s team Top Tossers and negating the need for a toss off.

Impossiball by name...

More big tennis was played to round the day off and at 6.30pm it was time to trundle home before it got dark.

On Wednesday a selection of Sillies enjoyed more indoor games at the YMCA. A newly designed missile game was followed by Unreal Tennis, involving the ball bouncing off the walls (and also involving quite a lot of ducking as the ball moves rather fast).

We also played Bouncing Volleyball, and Netball where the green team won comfortably – Helen proving once again what an excellent shot she is. Pete meanwhile proved his girlie credentials by tying with Tori as the best shooter for the red team.

The Silly Army hope a giant ice rink doesn't land on their heads.

The Silly Army will be meeting in King’s Park again from 1pm this Sunday. We will be playing Randomiser, Big Tennis, Combi Ball, Cladwhacking, Hockey, Budge, Monkey Toss and other games – come along and join us.

Apologies for the lack of blog activity last week. The Silly Army committee has been extremely hard at work organising paperwork, fighting the ice rink plans and planning a series of activities to ensure winter is far from boring – including The Silly Army Christmas Party (yay!). Details will follow in Dave’s mailout shortly.

Alex provided a great news write-up of his first experience of Wednesday games. Read it here.

 

 

 

Pete and Dave look quite the happy newlyweds in this shot, and all their friends look happy for them. All except Alan, who is clearly coveting Karen's cup of tea.

Silly Army compact

Alex gives the ball a good whack - trying to avoid the trees this time.

With the football season now well underway and the Boscombe Community Fair pulling in the punters, the Silly Army found themselves pressed for space in King’s Park last Sunday. However, there’s nothing the Sillies like more than a challenge and it was up to Pete, Dave and K to rapidly adapt their gameplan to fit the space available. Let’s just hope some of the doom mongers who deem King’s Park an ‘under-used space’ were out to see just how many people were out enjoying the park and the sunshine this weekend…

So it was that the Silly Army set up their games along the narrow edge of the park, beneath the trees. After laying out a long, thin hockey pitch there was a great new game for one of the members – Dog Egg Hunt. All the fun of an Easter egg hunt with less chocolate and more dog toffee, which was lovingly gathered using plastic bags and disposable gloves and deposited in the bin to ensure none of the players had an unpleasant, stinky experience. Dog owners of King’s Park take note: it really is that easy, not to mention much more fun if you clean up after your own dog. It certainly drew some curious looks from new members to be welcomed by a woman with a plastic bag of dog’s eggs.

As is rapidly becoming a Silly Army tradition, first game proper was Big Tennis. With Score Machine Helen sidelined for a few weeks, nobody was sure how we’d keep the score and there was the fear that we could just keep playing forever. However, between them and on opposing teams for fairness, K and Pete established that they could, just about, count to 21 (if they used all their fingers and one of their toes).

But early on it seemed we might not be scoring at all as a predictably vicious Terminator serve was thwarted by the location when the big tennis ball got stuck up a tree.

Cue another new game – Racquet Toss. The whole of the Silly Army lined up and threw their racquets towards the branches in the hope that the nice tree would give us our ball back. But the tree was not quick to bear fruit, and Barry further complicated matters when his racquet got stuck in the branches too.

Pete prepares one of his killer chip shots.

Eventually, in a hail of racquets, both ball and racquet were detatched and the game could continue. Pete’s team won one game and K’s the other before they abandoned counting and moved on to play hockey.

More members were joining now and hockey was proving interesting on a long, narrow pitch. Often there would be an invasion of footballers getting their ball back; just as frequently we had to retrieve our ball from their pitch.

A long game ensued as the ball frequently went out of play. However Pete’s team took the lead and it was decided halfway through to switch ends, as Terminator’s team were constantly playing uphill. Despite the change of ends it was Pete’s team who hammered more balls home to be the first to five.

After some Dodgeball, where many of our new members proved very adept at dodging, it was time to play Sticky Ball, again using the long, narrow pitch. Again a lot of the newcomers proved natural and again we missed Helen, Sticky Ball top scorer.

This was another long game and for once ended in an amicable draw, yellows winning the first game and blues the second. Then it was decided to break for tea.

Refreshed, the Sillies were able to spread out later in the afternoon and play Combi-Ball, which has been a missing fixture for some time. Dave, Pete and Termy are among the best scorers at this game and new members Mike and Harry showed some great football skills.

The blue team started slowly but were able to launch a bit of a comeback mission; however, the yellows took a comfortable victory.

Richard found the whole Tchoukball match fascinating!

Another game that’s been missing from our repetoire for a while is Tchoukball and that made a comeback next, both the blues and yellows playing equally well, although many of the old faithful had forgotten the rules. Without having exclusion zones the game was a little harder than many remembered, but it was tightly played and taken quickly to 4-4. As we were playing to five points everyone battled for the last goal and Chris excelled for the blue team to claim victory.

Following another brief tea stop, where Karl, Colin, Barry and K attempted to battle the wind and play frisbee, it was time for old favourite Monkey Toss. Steph, who had joined us late, is one of the best at this game and it was her team that got the most monkeys on the board.

There was time for a little more Big Tennis before it was time to pack up and head home for another week.

It was great to see so many new faces joining us; we hope you’ll come back for more!

This Saturday, a Silly Army delegation will be at Fit Christchurch hosting the attempt to break the Guinness World Record for 100m on a space hopper. We will be at The Quomps on Christchurch Quay from 10am to 4pm – come along and join us and give the record a go yourself.

On Sunday we will be back in the park for regular Silly Army games. We will be a little further over the field this time – past the football pitches, which have fixtures all season. Come along and join us from 1pm.

Tennis shots (C) Karen

Netting fun with the Silly Army

After a week’s break for the Pedal Kart Grand Prix, Bournemouth sports club for adults The Silly Army were keen to get back on the hallowed turf of King’s Park (before any evil planners stick a nasty ice rink on top of it).

Jolly hockey sticks.

Pete, Dave, K and Steph had been getting crafty in the past few weeks, making new uber-long netted racquets that look suspiciously like the things used to scoop poo out of swimming pools (yes, they really are called poo nets) and The Sillies spent the first couple of hours working out games to play with them.

We tried a variant of giant tennis, which resulted in several headings of the ball, and which Lee and K found easier when they abandoned the net. Then we tried a lacrosse style boys versus girls match (thanks to Kiwi Alex, Ras and Reece for becoming honorary girls to even out the numbers – we trust the surgery wasn’t too painful). This was a very experimental game, which we played for an hour and ten minutes with several different rules and methods of scoring. Ultimately it was the girls’ team who were the first to five in possibly the longest game we have ever played (our first session of Kubb not withstanding).

Though it needs work, this was a very popular game with the girls, perhaps because the large, unwieldy racquets eliminated height and speed advantage.

Sunday was a hot day so we decided to cool off with a spot of dodgeball before playing sticky ball. This was a closely contested game with a frustrating lack of sticking in the goals at one end. The yellows won the first game, the blues the second before the yellows rallied and took the match, with plenty of ‘In your face’ signals to the bluesers.

Hockey was another long slog game, with two teams that didn’t look even on paper but managed to successfully stop each other from scoring for a long time.

Pete and Ras put on a particularly impressive display for the reds while Steph and the other Alex were on form for the yellows.

This was another game that went on for a long time, the unexpected scorcher of a day taking its toll on ability to hit the ball and on tempers, which got a little frayed in the heat. However, we were all soon friends again after a break for tea and biscuits.

Next up was a game of Monkey Toss, in which Lee’s team challenged Ras’s team to find the best tossers in the Silly Army. Monkey Toss is a sneaky, stealthy game which relies on your ability to hide your monkey, evade capture and then toss your monkey off the goal line at the end.

Though it was a close call once more, it was eventually established that Lee’s team were the top tossers.

Come and mess around in the sea with us on Saturday.

After a brief spot of Big Ball Tennis we played Giant Tennis, although we kept the pitch a little shorter this time. Days as warm as Sunday were made for net games and we finished off with a spot of badminton at the high net, rotating players on and off.

A few of the Sillies stayed out playing Space Hopper Cricket, while the older members were becoming too stiff to move.

The Silly Army met again on Wednesday evening for more net games, including a lot of Big Ball Tennis and Volleyball.

Despite the red team taking a 3-1 lead at hockey, the yellow team came hurtling back to win 5-4. Sticky Ball was best not talked about from the point of view of the blue team, who were quickly and efficiently hammered by the yellows.

Alex came up with the idea of playing Tag using the whole park space, which was an excellent way of getting some running in, and of getting a stitch for some of the Sillies. We had a Slow Bike Race which Alan and Rich showed their prowess at, and Steph invented a cone picking up game tag game that the yellow team once again won – even when they went a player down.

Captain Pete and his motley crew build a vessel capable of shivering the hardest of timbers.

The Silly Army will be at the beach near Bournemouth Pier this Saturday at 12.30pm, practicing for the Mudeford Raft Race in aid of the RNLI. Come and join us for a drift along the coast, or come and play in the park this Sunday from 1pm. We will be practising for the Space Hopper 100m World Record attempt this Sunday.

Silly Army members do it twice a week!

Dave demonstrates a new game - Monkey Toss.

It’s Wednesday. It’s cold, grey skied and raining. That can only mean one thing: Silly Summer is upon us.

The second week in May was an important one for the Silly Army as we re-launched our Wednesday evening “Silly Army Lite” games sessions. Running from 7pm to darkness and beyond, these shorter meets focus on net games and a few interesting adaptations of our Sunday repertoire. More about Silly Army Lite later; first, let’s take a look at what we got up to last Sunday.

Two magic words greeted the early arrivals at King’s Park on Sunday: Monkey Toss.

Monkey Toss was an idea dreamt up by fearless leaders Dave and Pete (who, quite frankly, spend too much time thinking about things to do with primates) while playing with a magnetic monkey one day.

They discovered that by tossing the monkey against something metal, they could achieve all manner of amusing positions. The idea quickly formulated to gather a troop of 12 magnetic monkeys, and some metal, and award points to players for the positions they achieved. Twelve sticky monkeys were quickly assembled and on Sunday the game was trialled by flinging the monkeys at Sweetpea (the world’s most beautiful, most colourful car).

This car is a babe magnet. For small, hairy, magnetic simian babes.

Testing the game proved popular – after all, who doesn’t enjoy tossing monkeys? – and resulted in Pete’s car becoming something of a babe magnet, albeit for babes with more body hair than he has…

When the serious silly games got underway, a tough game of hockey ensured that everyone was soon feeling energised knackered. This was a hard-fought and drawn out battle, eventually won by the yellow team.

Having been worn out by hockey, we opted for a few rounds of dodgeball and double dodge, where particular mention must go to new member Jamie for some spectacular dodges, including an impressive leap. Could dodgeball king Ras have found a rival for his crown?

Lining up for sticky ball.

Sticky ball followed and proved another tiring, well-contested encounter, which the blue team won two games to one.

Next came tchoukball, recently updated with the addition of two extra trampette goals to give a grand total of four. The yellow team proved best at communicating and working together to win this game.

After a short tea break, we played old favourite crumbs and crows (or is it crows and crumbs?), the game guaranteed to get everybody confused, but also sure to get everyone talking – to ask “So, are we crows, or crumbs?”

Crows and crumbs, for the uninitiated, is a chase game in which players are split into two teams, one crumbs, the other crows. When your team name is called, you run and the other team chases you. It’s a constant source of amusement how much confusion this game can cause!

How to play tchoukball, as demonstrated by our loveable leaders. Scary faces entirely compulsory when attempting to score.

After this “genteel” pastime, everyone was in the mood for a good, hard cladwhacking. Good and hard it was, too; another long game, involving lots of good-spirited combat and friendly whacking. This was won by the yellows, who comprehensively thrashed the blues.

Next it was time for a new variation on an old game; Space Invaders. Instead of two sets of cones to knock down, there were seven, each within an exclusion zone and each with one cone for the blue and one cone for the yellow team.

The yellows comprehensively won the first game, quickly adopting a team strategy. However, the blues staged a comeback in the second game after Pete started talking tactics. This was clearly the yellow team’s forte, however, and they eventually won the match.

Space Invaders proved unexpectedly tiring, so another tea break followed. We rounded off the day with a game of space hopper cricket, which once again saw individual against individual. This quickly became the Ras and Terminator show as their impressive space hopper batting saw Terminator declare at 20 runs, only for Ras to score 21. Helen also proved good at this game, while the rest of us battled it out for Golden ducks.

We reconvened on Wednesday evening for two games of hockey (won by the reds first and the yellows second), sticky ball (a yellow whitewash), and bigminton/Silly tennis (won by team Pete on both occasions).

We love to play hockey night and day.

The Silly Army meets at King’s Park, Bournemouth, every Sunday afternoon from 1pm and every Wednesday from 7pm. Come along and join us any time throughout the sessions. You’ll find us behind the playground at the Ashley Road entrance. Visit our website for more information.

We also like to go on social events and are holding a bike ride this Saturday, going from Boscombe to Corfe Castle. Contact us if you’d like to come along! Cycling up trees is entirely optional…

Pete loves bikes. Pete loves trees. So this has gotta work, right? Join us for our bike rides!