Tuesday 28 February 2012

How to play "Pub Cricket" in a car

This is a car game that is disappearing in England. It used to be that one drove narrow A-roads winding through multiple villages to get where you wanted to go. Along the way were lots (and I mean lots!) of pubs. So somewhat like spotting out-of-state license plates (English: car registrations) on American roads, English kids instead played pub cricket...

The pub sign for the Market Tavern is a market
stall selling veggies – the man counts for 2 legs.
The Durham 
Indoor Market sign in red and gold
behind it has 8 legs – but it counts for nothing
as it is not a pub sign.
Every pub sign passed that has an animal on it (including human animals) has a value for how many legs it contains. The King's Head or The Shakespeare only give two legs each, while Coach & Horses or Fox & Hounds are real mother loads. Pubs like The Market Tavern, whose names don't refer specifically to animals but the pub sign contains animals (photo) do count for legs. When one meets a pub sign that doesn't have any legs, like the Elm Tree, then not only do you get zero points for that one but it becomes someone else's turn to count.*

These days, of course, everyone takes the M-roads (motorways) which don't have any pubs on them a'tall (American: adall). And besides,
the kids have screens to watch, either embedded in the backs of seats or held in their grubby little hands.

* Despite going to the Elm Tree every week, I couldn't think off hand of a legless pub (ha, ha: that's what you call someone in England when they've drunk too much – legless). So I got out the Durham phone book and the separate Yellow Pages. I was astounded to find only one (1) pub listed in each under the classifieds for 'pubic houses'.  Our old Cambridge phone book (1993-4) has seven (7) columns of public houses listed. What's become of this country? Ads too expensive? Too many pub closures? Pubs reclassifying themselves as restraurants??

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think we must have played pub cricket wrongly for over 30 years.

Our version :- two teams one in (batting ). If it has legs they count as runs. Ie. fox and hounds - 4 for the fox (4legs and an agreed amount of hounds ., say 4 , so 16 more legs. Same applies to coach and horses.
A person has two legs. The king head has neither arms or legs so no runs.
The carpenter would score two for his legs - although the carpenters arms gives cought out.
Any mention of arms is has to be out..

So.... Sun inn - no runs
White hart. 4 runs . 4 legs
Queens arms. Out
Masons arms . Out
Britannia 2 she had 2 legs.

I would suggest driver be umpire.

That's cricket.

Anonymous said...

Anon again.

It's a game of cricket so the same rules apply.

It's not someone else's turn to count bue after the first side is out all players . The next side go in to bat.

There are plenty of pubs without legs . The feathers, the commercial, mash tunn, railway.

Maybe the writer is having difficulty with English they have certainly messed up pup cricket rules.

Stick to baseball or learn the true game.

gleeb said...

Hey, we were taught this game by some Brit. Maybe he thought we were too stupid to grasp the true rules of cricket as applied to pub cricket. Maybe so...On the other hand, maybe there are regional variations. It was fun, anyway. And thanks for the clarifications.

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