- K and Steph prepare to give Pete a sound planking.
After being rained off the previous week, last Sunday The Silly Army were back in King’s Park with a vengeance, and had some new games to try to boot.
The Bournemouth sports club for adults are organising the games for Party on the Pier on Boscombe Pier on March 12th, and Pete, Dave and K have been busy devising and building games for the last couple of months, ably assisted by Pat, Robert and Alan.
So last Sunday the Silly Army trailer rolled up not just with the standard goals, balls and sticks, but also with barrels and planks not seen since the great raft non-victory of August 2010.
While Dave gets his thrills plank standing, we all know Helen is thinking those three little letters: W T F?
These are part of the Bridging The Gap challenge, getting from one piece of ground to the other without touching feet down, using only the barrels and planks. Cue much arguing as the Sillies attempted to work out the best way to complete the challenge. After much deliberation, it was unanimously decided that Dave was best at standing on planks.
We also attempted the Spacehopper Steeplechase, with newly constructed jumps. Here we mourned the sad loss of a much prized hopper, Feck Off, who had been suffering from a slow puncture (bravely borne) for some time now, and eventually blew up when Steph sat on him. Despite this mishap, Steph soon proved that she and Pete are still the best bouncers in the Silly Army.
Feck Off lived up to his name when he blew up last Sunday. RIP.
We started games proper with that traditional opener, Big Tennis, before moving on to Hockey. As ever this was a long game with much midfield play and occasional goalmouth scrambling. We eventually decided to play to three, and the red team chipped home the winner. While the rest of the club was playing jolly hockey sticks, Rich was busy building a rocket sculpture from the barrels and planks – we expect his Turner Prize is in the post.
Sticky Ball action, where the greens took on the red/blues and won.
After a spot of Dodgeball we played Sticky Ball, a lack of red bibs meaning the greens took on the blue and reds. The greens won the first game, the blue/reds made a comeback in the second, but it was the greens who were more co-ordinated to take the match.
Another new game followed, a strange idea of Pete’s that followed the donation of several sets of bucket stilts from Inspieration. Stilt Football is easier said than done, and most of the Sillies spent most of the time trying to keep their feet on. Even the natural footballers Paul and Greg were struggling with this game and after we have eventually scored one goal each, a draw was agreed.
"OK, so there's a ball over there - now how the heck do we get to it?"
Next up was Impossiball, the game of large, cumbersome nets and soft balls that is incredibly difficult to score in. This was a game won by the reds, largely thanks to the skill of Alex (whom we believe is in the New Zealand Impossiball Olympics squad).
It was Alex who suggested the next game, too. It’s muddy, wet, cold and February, so of course the Silly Army jumped at the chance to get down on all fours and line up as if waiting some kind of gynaelogical procedure. The game was the Crab Race and the idea was to race on all fours across a small piece of ground. Ras and Alex seemed adept at this game, leaving the rest of the field far behind them.
The Silly Army welcomes you with open legs.
There was time for more Big Tennis, won by Helen’s team, before darkness fell and we had to pack up.
The Silly Army meet in King’s Park every Sunday at 1pm and play a range of games – you don’t need to be any good at sport to join us! We also meet on Wednesdays at the YMCA in Westover Road – come along and join us.
The Sunday sessions are free, Wednesday sessions cost £5 to cover hire of the hall.
Come to Silly Army and you can do this too...
Pictures by Chris and Ras.
Silly Army 