Cubbies: Encyclopedia - Cubbies

Cubbies

Cubbies (or Cuppies) is a game originating in Merseyside played in Britain and parts of Sweden. One goalkeeper (The phrases "Who's goin' in?" and "I'll go in" are used to refer to who's going in as goalkeeper) stands in the goal to stop the football getting in, as in normal FA rules football. The rest of the players try to score in the goal. Often the players play in pairs or occasionally larger teams. Each player or team competes against each other and must score a predetermined amount (usually one) of goals to progress to the next round. Once a player/team has qualified they normally sit out until the end of the round. The round continues until only one player or team have failed to score the requisite number of goals and are therefore eliminated. The rest of the players start a next round which progresses in the same way. The last player/team left wins. Pairs are popularly referred to as Wembley Pairs in England. The knockout nature of the game leads to it being referred to in some parts of Britain as FA, after the FA Cup, or Wembley, after Wembley Stadium, the traditional home of the FA Cup final or in Northern Ireland as "Knockout" or if in pairs or more, "Team Knockout".

This derivation is often more physically demanding than the original game and encourages dribbling with the ball and keeping possession. For these reasons, Cubbies is a popular training game with amateur football clubs in England.

Cubbies is popular with school boys as the number of players is not important. The game has never been seen as a serious competitive sport. Attempts were made in the early nineties in Liverpool and mid nineties in the East Midlands to create tournaments for school children but the game's sometimes anarchic nature made adjudicating too difficult and plans were promptly dropped.

Categories: Football (soccer) | Team sports | Ball games

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Cubbies", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki