This is the first stage of my first draft of my book on games played with socks.

Sock Games

The concept is to provide a game using old socks. It is for groups meeting in places with no equipment and with facilities that could be damaged by normal ‘sporty’ games.

I hope to supply a new game each week.

1 Duelling. To be played in pairs. Stand back to back with a rolled up pair of socks in your hand. You may also have four individual socks in your pocket. The umpire counts out four paces and the duellists turn and fire. If they both miss they can take their socks from their pocket and make a roll and fire again. They are allowed to move within the room. One hit signifies the winner.(Injury risk: one banged knee on small table!)

2 Sock Sumo. A Sumo wrestling circle is laid out with socks. Two contestants face each other in the circle. Each has a whip made from three socks tied end to end. Each has a sock sellotaped to their waist. The contest is to whip the others socks off.(Injury risk: clash of wrists – watches can cause some pain)

3 Sock pictionary. The group is divided in to equal teams with equal numbers of socks. A member of each team reports to the ‘controller’ who gives them a word or phrase – for example, Pinocchio. The person with the knowledge of the word then tries to communicate to their team mates using only the socks to make relevant and helpful shapes. When the word is guessed a new member of the team goes up to get another word. And so on until the winning team has discovered all the words. The words I used for the first game of this were: pole vaulting, surfing, kite flying, horse riding, volleyball – worked surprisingly well.

4 Sock search. This is not about hiding socks! It is about putting socks around the building in places where they are visible but inconspicuous. For example, if the carpet is blue leave a sock on the carpet, if there is a piano leave a sock attached to its leg of the same colour. The children have a list and try to find the different coloured socks. This unpromising sounding game worked very well. I did not find a single sock without some major clues from others. The carpet coloured sock tucked up against the wall, the multi-coloured sock in the book shelf, a blue sock on a blue chair – it was like ‘Where’s Wally’ with socks.

5 Sock volley - badminton. String up a net using socks tied together. The shuttlecock is a sock ball with a sock tail tied on to aid its flight. No racquets. Use the palm of your hand. It can be hit by several members of the same team before going over the net – as in volley ball.This is not an easy game but the teams were very competitive and enjoyed it. I gave my own team a little pep talk on the importance of hitting the ball up and promptly did the most limply fluffed shot of the game.

All for now

AddendumFrom time to time I may supply a game using my rag ball. This has been made from a trouser leg stuffed with scarves, old T shirts, etc. It is rolled up and sewn up with heavy duty thread.

Rag ball Ukrainian circle volley ball game.In a circle. Keep the ball in the air as long as possible passing it across and around the circle. Whoever fluffs a pass goes in the middle where they kneel. The game continues with the middle filling up as more people fluff shots. There will be disagreements about who is responsible for a duff pass – the group should decide. If the middle gets too full it is in the interest of those in the circle to release someone. This can be done by aiming the ball on to one of those in the middle. Whoever is hit is released. You can only make this play if the ball has been kept up for two passes previous to the slam dunk on to someone in the middle.

If anyone in the middle catches the ball (without it touching the ground) then everyone is released and the last person to have touched it is on their own in the middle.

Danish LongballNormal rules. One bowler and everyone else against one wall. The bowler bowls the rag ball and one of the others kicks the ball away whereon the whole group charge off to the other end of the room and back. Any who are hit by the rag ball (thrown by the bowler) are now part of the fielding team. The game repeats until the winner is the last to be hit by the rag ball.Alternative. There is only one batsman and everyone else is fielding. A bowler bowls and the ‘batsman’ kicks the ball away and runs. A run is one length of the room. They are out if hit by the rag ball. With each run scored they have to score one more the next time. But the ball must do as many lengths as the runner. So, the fielders cannot simply wait for the runner to come back and hit him because the ball must travel as well. For example, if the runner has to score two runs, if he has run once and is coming back for a second run, the ball must have been to the end of the room once to get him on the way back.

Hat ball

Two equal teams and the rag ball. One player from each team wears a large hat and stands on a chair. This is played the same way as netball except to score a goal you need to knock the hat off your player. We played that hitting the hat is 1 point and knocking it off is 2.