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Do you want to play glarnies

A

Astonian

gone but not forgotten
Whe we was little kids at school all the rage was marbles
and you could buy then for six pence a bag of twenty five
and we all looked for the little special one hoping some one ain,t got the little special
one ;i bought mind from mr digger on lichfield rd next to roninsons fruit and veg
and we woul play shot at three you would make a little crack on the floor
and line thre of the smallest ones in your bag ,the other lad would keep taking shots at your marbles and for every one he dislodge he got to keep your marbles until he had cleard all your three every time he miss you would keep all is marbles
and when at school or at home on the streets we would say to kids do you want to play glarnies
i was so uselas at it i think i bought of glarnies every day of the week to take to school
so do you want to play glaries was the word and expression when i was growing up
best wishes astonion ;;;
 
Hi Alan I used to whop the lads and we played a game where you would put the bullie against the wall at school and the first person to hit him one all the other marbles. I used to play gutters on the way home from school and my dad used to get me the big ballbearing marbles. I still have my favourite a red see through marble. There is a bag full upstairs that I have kept for many years. Will take a photo of them sometime. I think there was a game called bombs but am not sure?. Jean. PS the bullie was a large marbl.
 
At school we used to say are we playing for just points or keeps.

I always played for keeps and used to lose a bag of marbles seemingly every week.

My Mom was well pleased at 6d a time..
 
Had not thought about the word glarnies for so many years and here it pops up. I played 'gutters' on the way home from school, and seem to remember a game called 'Holey' ? and a game where marbles were in a ring and you had to knock marbles out to win them - but I can't remember the rules - not that I need them now because I think my marble playing days are over.
 
Phil I am sure you still have got all your marbles. I do remember once when I dropped my bag and my marbles went all over the playground and the lads especially were running around after them and I lost a lot that day. Jean.
 
G G Jean said:
Phil I am sure you still have got all your marbles. I do remember once when I dropped my bag and my marbles went all over the playground and the lads especially were running around after them and I lost a lot that day. Jean.
Click to expand...

I hope they didn,t take advantage of your kind nature Jean
 
I was rubbish and always lost my marbles........no comments please. I can also remember the large marbles being referred to as gobbies!
 
If you had a favourite marlie that you didn,t want to lose you,d play for swaps if you could. Dek
 
Wendy thanks I couldn't remember the gobbies maybe I am getting mixed up with bullies and gobbies?. Dek I chased everyone of them to get me marlies back. Only spoke to one of them the other day and he is only on our caravan site and I am trying to get him to join the forum. Jean.
 
What a wonderfully nostalgic topic! I remember "marlies". Some enterprising children would set up a marble "side show" in the playground. An upturned shoe-box would have little "archways" cut into it with the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc written above. Punters would roll their marbles from the "line", trying to get them through the archways. If, for example, your marble rolled through the one marked "3" you would win three marbles. It was much harder than it looked. The kids who ran these operations always had the most marbles, and no skill was required on their part: it was a mugs game! I'm sure some of these fledgling entrepreneurs went on to become very successful in the business world.
 
Hi,
As I mentioned on the Broad St. Photo's topic, when I went to St. Peter's in the early '60s "marlies" was the game. I usually provided the shoe-box but in our variation there were about six "archways", the highest scoring being just wide enough for the marble (no cheating with different sizes of marble!), becoming easier as the points diminished. It was played 'for the love of the game' and bragging rights, no one went home with empty pockets!
I did win most games I must admit but this variation was about skill - quite probably influenced by the nature of the school/church environment there.

Regards, Gerry.
 
Any one remember one of the conditional variances of marlies whereby someone would insist on "Feets behind the hole"? What the heck was that when it was about? And whilst I'm here, what about the pure Bummie term "Bonce" for your nut. I heard Alan Smith use it on Match of The Day last week and wondered what the cockneys and scousers made of it.
 
Now you remind me, I remember the 'feets' or 'no feets' calls. Feets were useful behind the marlie being aimed at because the attacking marlie would not go far past. We used to stand with our feet 'vee shaped' behind the marlie. I don't remember 'feets' behind the hole, but thinking about it I've forgotten the general rules about 'feet' !
 
Our Dad made us a Bagatelle which was like a large wooden tray with tiny nails hammered in patterns, like a pinball machine I suppose. We also had the "marlie-bridges" and those ball-bearing ones.
I wasn't very good at the ordinary games though. I like to put marlies in clear flower vases, as some of the old ones are so pretty!!
 
I have sorted my marbles out and they fill a collindar and half. I will pick my favourites out and post them too later. Jean.
 
These are just some of my marbles and the original bag they were in when I was at Junior school and hand stitched too. Will post my favourites later. Jean.
 
Boy ! This brings back memories. Some of the games I remembered with glarnies included holey and gutters. In holey you shot to get your marble into a hole leaving the marble where it stopped if unsuccessful. Once you got your marble into the hole you got a single shot at any marble around taking it if you hit it. You always had to be mindful as to whether swaps were allowed, substituting a ' Gobber' if you were shooting or a chipped, gnarled and cracked one if yours was the target. Gutters was played along the roadside gutters as you went to and from school. First person shot a marble along the gutter and the next person had a shot at it making sure the shooter was thrown hard enough to pass the target if you missed. Then the first person would shoot at yours thus progressing on to school albeit at a very slow pace. The other marble game was shooting for military badges and the like. There were badges and badges. The most common one seemed to be a small Royal Fusiliers cap badge but ocassionally you would come across huge badges. Half the time was spent negotiating the shooting distance. If you hit the badge you kept it, if you missed, you lost your marble. With the big badges you could well expect to be shooting from halfway across the playground. Ah those were the days .... I could get going on Conkers but that's another story. ( By the way, conkers are banned in Canadian Schools as being dangerous .... maybe they are worried about conker swinging terrorists running amok)
 
Dave it does bring back memories and was there a champion player at your school?. I remember Terry Young was about the best and Alan Honeyfield who I have just got back in touch with with a close second. I can't remember another girl that took her marlie's everywhere. The photographs show my very old favourites that my twins were never allowed to take out of the house. When I was planting this year I dug up yet another glarnie. Jean.
 
I remember when I used to play marlies it never cost me and my pals a penny. We were always into steelies. They were easyish for us to get as just over the railway bridge by Kings Norton station was the factory centre and there was a place called BKL Alloys. The was a large area which housed what was known locally as crashed aeros, in reallity they were old aircraft from the war and before that had been scrapped and the aluminium being reclaimed. We used to break open the wheels and any other parts that looked like there would be ball bearings inside. No glass marlie roller would ask us for a game as our big gobbie steelies would smash the little glass things.
 
Mike my dad used to get mine from Halladays but what he did to get at them I don't know. They were the massive ones not like the ones in the photo. Jean.
 
Don't ever remember buying any,I won all mine.We played gutters on the way home from school.
What I do remember, was the rules being settled before the game began,no steelies,no tips and no fudging(shuffling forward when about to take your pot).However,once the game started the rules were always open to interpretation,and most games ended in a fight.What fun...
 
Hiya Mossy,
What I want to know is how come jean played glarnies,down our end it was a boy's game.
Girl's did hand stands up the wall.
 
Ray Barrett said:
Hiya Mossy,
What I want to know is how come jean played glarnies,down our end it was a boy's game.
Girl's did hand stands up the wall.
Click to expand...

I wouldn,t have let her play just in case she got lucky and beat me, but i wouldn,t mind the hand stands as long as she tucked her skirt into her knickers first. Dek
 
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