School daze and nostalgia.

[The Real Laoislad]

Roy of the Rovers and Tiger, including one of our regular posters here

Also Hot Shot Hamish, Mickey Mouse, Wee Wally Campbell, Charlie the Cat Carter, Blackie Grey, and of course the immortal Roy 'what a screamer' Race.

I remember the first edition of Roy of the Rovers, a mate in school let me read it in music class. my favourite was "The safest hands in soccer"

Ya mean Goalkeeper?

Remember he had a little skeleton as a luck charm!

[The Real Laoislad]

The old cards of soccer players, before stickers. Remember them? They came with a stick of chewing gum that tasted like Cardboard. I think they were 'Topps'. There was no album that i know of, but I used to play pre-subbuteo subbuteo with them. Nottingham Forest v Liverpool. Aston Villa v Ipswich Town. Jimmy Rimmer, Ray CLemence, Ray Kennedy, Asa Hartford, Archie Gemmill, Gary Shaw, Paul Cooper.

Subbuteo god I loved that, my older brother use to buy me everything for it,I even had a little stadium built for it and I remember when I broke one of the players I use to make a player from a few pieces of lego!,then when technology advanced I got the Tomy electronic soccer game where you moved the players up and down the pitch and made them turn to hit the ball with little controls behind the goal does anyone remember that?

[The Watcher Pat]

Playing conkers and painting them with clear nail varnish then putting them in the hotpress to harden them. Nearly breaking my knuckles with them after..

[AZOffaly]

The old cards of soccer players, before stickers. Remember them? They came with a stick of chewing gum that tasted like Cardboard. I think they were 'Topps'. There was no album that i know of, but I used to play pre-subbuteo subbuteo with them. Nottingham Forest v Liverpool. Aston Villa v Ipswich Town. Jimmy Rimmer, Ray CLemence, Ray Kennedy, Asa Hartford, Archie Gemmill, Gary Shaw, Paul Cooper.

Subbuteo god I loved that, my older brother use to buy me everything for it,I even had a little stadium built for it and I remember when I broke one of the players I use to make a player from a few pieces of lego!,then when technology advanced I got the Tomy electronic soccer game where you moved the players up and down the pitch and made them turn to hit the ball with little controls behind the goal does anyone remember that?

Subbuteo was class alright. I used blue tack when the players broke, which caused war in our street league because the players were much heavier with the blue tack, and a shot from a centre forward weighted down with half a pound of blue tack was hard to stop There was about 8 of us that used to play leagues in each others houses. I was the Chelsea/Man City of our time because I got the Astroturf pitch My father built me a 'stadium' after I got the World Cup edition one year. He built a folding table about the size of a snooker table, and bolted metal bits to the side of it to hold my Grandstand (with about 10 painted spectators), four floodlights, and scoreboard. I had the fences all around the pitch, and the police officers on horseback and all!!. Remember the dedicated corner kick takers, and the throw in Rory Delap specialists? You needed some dexterity to control them bucks

Innocent times, but great craic.

[Square Ball]

catties, does anyone remember making them?

or pea shooters, stealing your Mas barley and you sisters school pen to use as a shooter, swallowing some barley especially when your mouth was dry.

[pintsofguinness]

anyone make peg guns?

[Square Ball]

anyone make peg guns?

a long piece of wood with a nail at the end, a peg fastened to the other end as a trigger?

[The Real Laoislad]

The old cards of soccer players, before stickers. Remember them? They came with a stick of chewing gum that tasted like Cardboard. I think they were 'Topps'. There was no album that i know of, but I used to play pre-subbuteo subbuteo with them. Nottingham Forest v Liverpool. Aston Villa v Ipswich Town. Jimmy Rimmer, Ray CLemence, Ray Kennedy, Asa Hartford, Archie Gemmill, Gary Shaw, Paul Cooper.

Subbuteo god I loved that, my older brother use to buy me everything for it,I even had a little stadium built for it and I remember when I broke one of the players I use to make a player from a few pieces of lego!,then when technology advanced I got the Tomy electronic soccer game where you moved the players up and down the pitch and made them turn to hit the ball with little controls behind the goal does anyone remember that?

Subbuteo was class alright. I used blue tack when the players broke, which caused war in our street league because the players were much heavier with the blue tack, and a shot from a centre forward weighted down with half a pound of blue tack was hard to stop There was about 8 of us that used to play leagues in each others houses. I was the Chelsea/Man City of our time because I got the Astroturf pitch My father built me a 'stadium' after I got the World Cup edition one year. He built a folding table about the size of a snooker table, and bolted metal bits to the side of it to hold my Grandstand (with about 10 painted spectators), four floodlights, and scoreboard. I had the fences all around the pitch, and the police officers on horseback and all!!. Remember the dedicated corner kick takers, and the throw in Rory Delap specialists? You needed some dexterity to control them bucks

Innocent times, but great craic.

I had the fences as well,some of them had advertising on them,I use to make my own adverts by gluing bits of cardboard onto the fences that didn't have any...Never had the police men on horseback though
I do remember the throw takers though I also had a ref and linesmen as well as corner flags and the floodlights,had a grandstand too that the brother bought.
I remember my brother who was going through a phase of being a Chelsea fan and he bought the Chelsea team he ended up giving me a hiding one day as I used tipp-ex to paint a white hoop on the Chelsea jerseys to make them into Laois jerseys 

[Tyrones own]

Anyone remember/have the spud gun?

[milltown row]

catties were fine and dandy, my brothers and i used to just have elastic bands, we would get magazine paper (as it was always tougher) roll them up and it made great bullets, headed up into our attic, no windows, lights out and it was complete darkness. the slightest noise gave away your position. once found you were shot up like butch Cassidy and the sundance kid.  rember once getting hit in the eye, that was it, Ma went mental no more elastic bands

[pintsofguinness]

Anyone remember/have the spud gun?

yes! ah I loved it.  it was the pride and joy of my arsenal (with about a dozen peg guns)

[Tyrones own]

or the big bad Black widow when we got a bit older

[milltown row]

couldn't have a spud gun, christ the peelers/army were shooting you if ya had a paint brush in your hand!!!!

[Our Nail Loney]

You know what I like about this thread - not one mention of video games at all.

They really are the ruination of a generation.

There ya go, never even noticed that... It is cat, my girlfriends wee bro is only four and he is already addicted to the wii, and has played the playstation I don't know how many times... When I was that age a bike was the world to me!

Speaking of bikes, I remember one day when I was younger me and my cousins went on an awful cycle, musta been miles upon miles, up through Bleary to Portadown to Lurgan then back to Craigavon, my legs were like jelly when I got off, I could barely kick a ball sitting in my garden!

[Tyrones own]

That unique smell of the auld Ulster bus...for those that weren't on one too often that is...