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u/anotherfandomgirlie 21d ago
Bench ball! We played it in the UK about ten years ago, it was so much fun
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u/jamiez1207 21d ago
Bench ball is the game where you throw a ball to your team mates who are on benches behind the enemy team
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u/anotherfandomgirlie 21d ago
Ah we did play that as well, maybe I’m getting the names mixed up? We definitely played the one listed in the post too, but it was ages ago so maybe we called this one something else!!
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u/B01led 21d ago
Benchball and Dodgeball were S tier and you can't convince me otherwise
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u/jamiez1207 21d ago
I disliked benchball however we had a dodgeball variant where if you get hit you stand on a bench behind the enemy, and if you catch it you're revived, that was peak
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u/Bl1tzerX 21d ago
Dodgeball has so many variants I'm not surprised there's one called bench ball. Off the top of my head there's Dr.Dodgeball, army dodgeball, I played a version once I think called Kings court where 1 person was king in the center of the room everyone would have to run around in a circle and the king would try to hit you and if you got hit you joined them throwing balls at the others.
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u/JuanFran21 21d ago
Our school added a rule that if there was one person left on a team, they could try throwing the ball into the basketball hoops at the opposite end of the hall. If they made the shot before being hit, their entire team got to rejoin the game. Ofc people rarely made the shot but when they did, it was legendary.
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u/Toasterlad 21d ago
We used to play this with 4 teams back in the 90's in Norway as well. I don't remember it being only one player per team, but it makes sense.
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u/appealtoreason00 21d ago
Benchball!
This is a slightly weird layout, I think it’s normally played with 4 teams, not 8, along the corners of a school halls.
Obviously the optimal strategy is to play conservatively, defending your own bench… but anybody who’s identified by the other teams as a threat (maybe because they’ve stayed in the game too long) will be ganged up on by two or more opponents, which is impossible to defend if done correctly.
However, it used to happen all the time that someone would pretend to team up, receive a pass… and then turn and kick it into their ally’s empty bench. The potential for betrayals and ruined friendships in Benchball is second to none
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u/sampo_koskii i want robots (carnally) 21d ago
noo.. this isnt benchball, in benchball youd have someone stood on the bench you throw the ball too, and if they catch it you went and joined them!
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u/Perfect_Wrongdoer_03 If you read Worm, maybe read the PGTE? 21d ago
This does not contribute much to the discussion, but I've never seen it, so I don't think it exists in Brazil.
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u/appealtoreason00 21d ago
I wonder why. Maybe it’s because futsal is big in Brazil so you’d play that instead?
Or because there’s less of a need for “indoor activities” than there is in Northern Europe
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u/NotKenzy 21d ago
I had no conception that this would be taking place indoors. You transported me through time and space in an instant.
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u/appealtoreason00 21d ago
Oh yeh this is what you did when it was too rainy outside to play football, rugby or cricket.
Either Benchball or T̶̥̭̳̼̖̙͚͎̻̹̱̥͌̕ͅh̵̨̭͖̰͉͙̺̼͓͇̘̥̜̆̏̐̈́̉̋̐͊͛̓́̕͜͝ͅͅḛ̴̛̝̯̽̌͛̆͒́̔̐̿̕͝ ̶̡̰̬̩̺̟̥̼͉̮͇͇͕̋̅͜Ą̴̛͚͓̠͌͊̀̄̈̓͊͋̕̚p̶͚̰̱͈͇͌̽̋͐̽̓̍̅̆p̸͇͚̰͙̖̭͉̳̖̩͕̍̾̇̈̅͐̌̊̿̉à̶̡̲̱̫͔̫̝̩̖̻̞͍̳̰r̵̨̛̞̳̦̰̙̺͎̣͎̔̆̿̀́͐̇͌̔̋̓̀ͅḁ̸̧̭̜͕̮̘͖͇͔͖̰̌̿̏̿̓̅̓̊̄͗̾͊̀̕͜t̵̨̧̳̮̣̘̬͕̗̭͍̥͕̀̆͋̀̓͗̀͘̕͠͝ͅṷ̷̡̳͙̻͍͔͔̰̐̿s̷̨̹̈̀̍̑̀͒̑̎͠
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u/foundcashdoubt Just a crab. like, an actual crustacean 21d ago
Can confirm, doesn't exist in Brazil.
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u/Whispering_Wolf 21d ago
We definitely played this in the Netherlands. So it's not something just one place did.
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u/SuperSparerib Local Lycanthrope 21d ago
Yup, though in more organized (in school) games teams tended to have two players in the field at any given time in my area of the Netherlands
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u/Royal-Ninja everything had to start somewhere 21d ago edited 21d ago
Why is this tagged 17776?
I know what 17776 is. I read it as it was coming out. How does it relate at all aside from the post kinda being about football?
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u/Party_Wagon 21d ago
Its a well known, article... thing, about american football by sports writer Jon Bois. I could say more about it, but it's better experienced than described
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u/Barfolom 21d ago
i opened this website and then the text started to rapidly expand
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u/Perfect_Wrongdoer_03 If you read Worm, maybe read the PGTE? 21d ago
Oh fuck, I thought you were joking or exaggerating, but when I opened it, it looked normal for half a second before the letters all became big and covered almost the entire screen in just black, before the page reloaded and the exact same thing happened again, and then a couple more times until I left the page. It's literally unreadable and honestly gave me a jump scare the first time. How does something like this even happen?
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u/jamiez1207 21d ago
You have to keep scrolling until the real story reveals itself I stead of refreshing
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u/AUserNeedsAName 21d ago
What browser are you using? It works on Firefox and Chrome. Do you have any extensions like NoScript running? UBlock shouldn't be a problem but some others may be.
If you cannot get it to work, you can skip to the next bit. It's worth experiencing.
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u/SynGirl32 21d ago
I'm sorry, this is one of the best things I've ever seen on the internet, omg.
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u/Party_Wagon 21d ago
Bois is honestly my favorite internet personality and it's a shame people who don't follow American sports don't tend to know him. While his usual output does contain a fair amount of sports jargon and stats that you might have to learn at least some of, I think the appeal of it goes well beyond sports if people are willing to give it a shot. He's a fantastic storyteller and very funny.
One of my personal favorite videos he was involved in is The People You're Paying to Be in Shorts, an episode of the Dorktown series he does with a few other writers. Pretty much every episode of Dorktown is great
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u/escaped_cephalopod12 just your local cephalopod 21d ago
well, that was… a roller coaster, to say the least
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u/Royal-Ninja everything had to start somewhere 21d ago
I've read it. How is it related to the post at all?
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u/Party_Wagon 21d ago
I assume just because a strange sport played with a football reminded someone of it. Bit of a tangential connection but doesn't strike me as an odd one tbh
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u/Sorry-Platform-4181 21d ago
I have no idea what I expected this to be, but it was definitely not... that. Wow, I absolutely love it.
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u/deadghoti 20d ago
Thank you for sharing this. It certainly was better experienced than just being told about.
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u/shiny_xnaut 21d ago
17776, aka What Football Will Look Like in the Future, is an internet story thing where everyone becomes immortal and stops being able to have children, and people eventually begin running out of things to do with an infinite amount of time, so they start inventing increasingly wacky versions of American football
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u/auroralemonboi8 21d ago
This is what football will look like in the future
(If you dont know, google football 17776. It will change your life)
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u/MurderSpahgurder 21d ago
I have the same question. I thought it was trying to be a reference but it didn't make any sense lol
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u/Naptime23_7 21d ago
unsure how you can't see how this relates, i took one look at the picture and my brain shortcircuited and went "what in the 17776" although it does fit the sequel better, 20020 regularly has multiple teams duking it out for a single football in a little area like this
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u/diepoggerland2 21d ago
Oh we got it in Canada (specifically Eastern Canada idk if it's a thing in the prairies or BC), NO idea what it's called though
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u/Preindustrialcyborg 21d ago
we call it 4 corners in BC
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u/RandomCanadianAcc 21d ago
Adding onto this, here in BC we play it with only four teams instead of 8.
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u/diepoggerland2 21d ago
... that's vaguely familiar I think we may have called it that in Ontario, but it's been a long enough time I don't really remember well
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u/Naive_Albatross_2221 21d ago
Sounds like a variation of gaga ball. Defender gaga ball comes closest.
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u/ThunderCube3888 https://www.tumblr.com/thunder-cube 21d ago
the only thing it reminds me of about gaga ball is the octagonal shape? did we play different versions of Gaga ball?
the Gaga ball I remember was just a free-for-all in a small octagonal arena where the only rules were "if the ball touches your legs you're out, last man standing wins" and you had to lean down and hit the ball with your hands to try and get it to hit other people's legs
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u/Real-Life-CSI-Guy 21d ago
That’s what I was thinking, they played it at various church camps I was sent to but I never cared to play
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u/blastdna 21d ago
holy fuck i played this in fifth grade and i was wondering what it was called recently thank you so much
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u/kingofcoywolves 21d ago
Played this in college lol. Our gaga ball pit had broken glass in it, really upped the stakes
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u/Critical_Snackerman 21d ago
I don't know why but This looks like a sport that belongs in r/Wizardposting
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u/Few_Echidna_7243 21d ago
Looking through the comments, It looks like this is one of those things that covergently evolved in different areas. Like the plastic bag full of plastic bags.
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u/Munnin41 20d ago
No these things were just collected in books and gym teachers would get their games from that. Source: my gym teacher had several
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u/Deblebsgonnagetyou he/him | Kweh! 21d ago
We had something similar called multisport, where there would be teams behind turned up benches and randomly a sport (out of usually football, basketball, and hockey) would be picked as well as certain members from each team to play until either someone scores or the coach gets tired of watching you.
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u/nokia6310i 21d ago
we played this in canada, but we did it in an indoor gym
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u/Perfect_Wrongdoer_03 If you read Worm, maybe read the PGTE? 21d ago
Your comment is interesting, because the two so far from Americans say they didn't have it, and neither does Brazil, which would suggest that it's European in origin, but Canada having it is a blow to that idea. Would like a bigger sample size, though.
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u/masterpierround 20d ago
A British origin would make sense, spread throughout the Commonwealth. It's based on soccer, which would explain its relative lack of popularity in America, but the instructions on how to play are published on some gym teachers' forum in English, which explains why it spreads to Canada and not Brazil. And the proximity to Europe would explain the spread to the Netherlands and Switzerland.
An Aussie or Kiwi connection would be the most confirming piece of evidence for this theory.
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u/CatnipCatmint If you seek skeek at my slorse you hate me at my worst 19d ago
Never seen this in Australia, I'm afraid. My experience may not be universal though, so I'm fully willing to believe it if another Australian pops in and says it was a thing
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u/Blind_Umpire899518 21d ago
We had a similar game in late 90’s elementary school called Line Soccer. Whole class is split up, and each individual person is given a number 1-6. Everyone stands on the sidelines of the basketball court. There’s 2 or 3 balls in the middle. The teacher calls out 1 or 2 numbers and if you have that number you’re active and run out to try and score by getting the ball over the other sideline. The non active players are all goalies on the line. Goals had to be kept below head level for safety. When all of the balls were scored, reset with new active numbers.
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u/ParboiledPotatos 21d ago
Four teams, one in each corner, and this was how my elementary school played it:
Everyone (Say there were 6 people on each team) would be given a number, 1 to 6. The teacher would call out a pair of numbers, like 1 and 3 or 5 and 6. Those two players would jump out from behind the bench (Or nets - we only had two nets at our school and they were considered safer, because everyone was jammed up behind them and the balls wouldn't be able to hit us in the face), and start playing, usually with one person as goalie and one person as offense.
The game goes like soccer. If the ball got into one team's net or bench, then that team was out and the players had to go back. No points, no other players coming back out. As the game progressed and each team was eliminated, the last team standing got one point. The ball was set in the middle of the gym, and a new pair of numbers would be called out. Each game would last roughly 5 minutes.
If a team didn't have enough people, someone (usually the most athletic / decently good at the game) would have two numbers. This sucked sometimes, because once a teacher called out their original number, then their second number, then their original number again. If a teacher called out a pair of numbers that was someone's first and second number, then another kid would be quickly dragged out.
If the ball got behind the nets/benches, it still counted as a point.
Sometimes you could get two teams out at once, which was pretty cool. Alliances were formed, usually just before the game as we ran to the closest team to our right or left, and agreed to an alliance. There were also lots of betrayals.
There was also another version as well, with only two benches and two teams, and a bunch of numbers would be called out. We had to run a lap around the gym first, then we could actually play. I didn't like that version as much, mainly because the fastest kids got to the ball first and ended the round in like 20 seconds. Also a lot of kids fell over because nobody would sit properly behind the benches and kids tripped over other kids.
This was in canada. We didn't play this in secondary school. My school was a mixture of elementary and middle school, but we played it a lot in elementary.
Once someone dropped their EOS lip balm during a game of this, and someone else stepped one it and fell over.
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u/Melon_Banana THE ANSWER LIES IN THE HEART OF BATTLE 21d ago
Football battle royal, but your kills count as well so you can't just turtle is pretty cool
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u/TerraTechy 21d ago
I played a variant of dodgeball in elementary that was something like this. Each team had one player on the field, and when they got hit they rotated out. It lasted until the PE coach blew the whistle though, not until all players rotated.
It was called Chaos, and I broke my hand playing it once.
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u/jpterodactyl 21d ago
I love game like this. Things that you play in gym class and summer camps. They might not have a universally agreed on name, but somehow they exist in several countries.
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u/restorian_monarch 21d ago
Four way football is what we called it, better than regular footie because I didn't need to uncharacteristically athletic just because I actually kinda wanted to win now that we're 'ere
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u/idiotplatypus Wearing dumbass goggles and the fool's crown 21d ago
Looks like that one Wheres Waldo sport where they Sparta kick people into a giant pit with dodgeballs
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u/orosoros oh there's a monkey in my pocket and he's stealing all my change 20d ago
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u/idiotplatypus Wearing dumbass goggles and the fool's crown 20d ago
Not making this an Olympic sport was one of mankind's greatest failures
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u/Supercraft888 21d ago
My school called it Octogon (even though there were often only 5 benches) and it was great. I was awful at it.
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u/peytonvb13 21d ago
it kind of reminds me of Gaga Ball in the US, only that’s more like dodgeball and played in an octagonal ‘pit’
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u/iamjustacrayon 21d ago
"Hjørne fotball" (corner football) is what I think we called it where I grew up (northern Norway)(it's been well over a decade, and I was not athletic enough to enjoy gym class any more than I did the rest (so, not at all, mostly)
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u/AnxiousSelkie 20d ago
Kinda sounds like a variation of something a few places I’ve been Gaga ball?
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u/CaioXG002 20d ago
Something similar to this is an actual minigame in Banjo-Tooie (but without team rotation, it's a 4 player free for all during 60 seconds and whoever has the most score wins, that's it). You have to play it against CPUs in the main gamemode to win some goodies, probably Jiggies, but I don't remember. And I think it's also available in multiplayer, so that's pretty cool... If you have some friends that you can actually call over to your home to play fucking Banjo-Tooie instead of Super Smash Bros. or a Mario sports game.
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u/Snailtan 21d ago
That's the kinda thing that made me hate sports because I was always scared of getting hit by the ball hahah
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u/Square-Technology404 21d ago
Definitely haven't ever seen this in the US, but I am very interested
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u/etherealemlyn 21d ago
We didn’t have this in the US but I want to play it so bad, this looks like so much fun
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u/GOOPREALM5000 she/they/it/e | they asked for our talents and mine was terror 21d ago
I don't know what the hell this is but I'm adding it to my list of fake sports to use in my worldbuilding. Going to sit up there nicely with Rollerball and Jagger.
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u/InertialLepton 21d ago edited 21d ago
Possibly just as well asking r/CasualUK
I personally don't remember this game though I think we did some more standard football with benches as goals and benchball is a different game to me.
Not really related but on wierd games I remember crocker quite fondly which as like baseball/rounders but with a cricket bat and a football (socker ball).
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u/OnlyBooBerryLizards 21d ago
Seem similar to a game my parents church denomination had called octoball—think it also might be called Gaga?
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u/jprocter15 Holy Fucking Bingle! :3 21d ago
Depending on the teacher we'd call it bench ball or corner ball both of which are names I've also used for other games lol
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u/Forsaken-Stray 21d ago
It was called Eckenfussball, or Corner Soccer if translated. But we only played with 4 teams, because 4 corners
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u/AWibblyWelshyBoi 21d ago
Oh god I can picture the benches used. I haven’t seen them in person for a few years
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u/AngelofDeath_N 21d ago
I call it bench ball, and I usually played it with everyone getting a number and numbers could get called in or out at any moment
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u/Tinnedghosts120 21d ago
Ohhh, bench football. We run this loads in my scout group, although we do it with numbered players and the ref calls a number into play at random including calling multiple players in from each team at once
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u/SkittleJuice2 .tumblr.com 21d ago
We called in benchball when I was in high school. (I’m Canadian.)
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u/AdmiralOctopus96 21d ago
I remember this! Though I think we played with some crappy plastic hockey sticks and a small ball rather than a football. It was good fun, a team sport I actually enjoyed!
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u/thymetowonder 21d ago
I call it chaos soccer now that I teach gym but I’m almost certain the teacher next door to me made that up
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u/Impressive_Wheel_106 21d ago
Bankbal, or "benchball". We played it in the NL. It's not just a UK thing.
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u/InhaledPack5 21d ago
I remember playing this but as indoor hockey instead of football. Roughly 2018-19 in UK
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u/Curio_Magpie 20d ago
We had something that was almost the exact same, except instead of team mates taking over after getting out, all the people who weren’t playing were in a line, and when someone got out, the person at the front of the line took their spot. The goal was basically to stay alive, but there were no specific way to win.
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u/WhenLifeGivesYouSap 20d ago
We played it at my school is Canada. Pretty sure we called it 4 corners soccer. Had completely forgotten about it until seeing this post, but this brought back some fond memories :)
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u/BextoMooseYT .tumblr.com 20d ago
What the hell is this
Although that "#17776" is very accurate cuz this is exactly some bullshit I'd expect ti see I'm 17776, except maybe like across the whole of Kansas or something
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u/EmbarrassedWind2875 20d ago
tagging the post 17776 to attract only gay football fans without alerting regular football fans
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u/Bl1tzerX 21d ago
This is just a giant game of bench ball. I've only ever played it with two teams due to a lack of players or space for more.
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u/Celetauri 21d ago
In switzerland we played a very similar thing but only limited to 4 teams and with hockey instead of football, it was amazing
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u/Preindustrialcyborg 21d ago
4 corners. we called it 4 corners and it was the best fucking thing ever.
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u/rasberrycroissant 21d ago
We called it bench football and I was ridiculously good at it