Bulldog – The Game!

Writing the previous post on my first baseball game conjured up fond memories of playing rounders as a British school child in West Berlin in the 1980s. Soon followed the memories of kiss-chase and most fond of all bulldog!

Bulldog was THE GAME. Come recess, the large rectangular asphalt yard at The Havel School was taken over by the boys and girls of classes 5 through 7 (possibly 8, but they tended to be “too grown” to play with the kids) in the singular game of BULLDOG! Any children trying to use the yard to play other games soon found themselves occupying a very small space smushed up against the perimeter. Ok, I exaggerate just a bit.

Oh how fun. We would all make our way to one end of the yard. Somehow a “bulldog” would be chosen or would appoint themselves. This “bulldog” would taunt the free children, often selecting one person to attempt to make his or her way down to the other end. If this free child managed to do so, before you knew it, there would be a mad dash of children running there as well with the singular goal of not being tagged by the “bulldog”. If you were tagged, you too became a “bulldog” and in the next dash to the other end of the yard would now try to tag others. So, with each dash across the yard the number of bulldogs increased while the number of free children dwindled. Oh, I did love those sprints. I loved them even more when I was being chased by boys I fancied. Just saying.