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Here comes the sun!

After a long, cold winter cooped up indoors, there are few things better than getting out in the backyard and enjoying some fresh air and sunshine. If you are like me, you probably want to combine that with a bit of exercise to work off the extra pounds of that winter coat.

Here are a few suggestions:

SOCCER
A perennial favorite. Get a ball and off you go. The traditional game is played on a pitch 110 x 70 yards with 11 players a side. If you have a massive backyard and half the neighborhood around, well and good, but for the rest of us so long as you have a reasonable grassed space and an even number of people, it is game on. You will need a goal at each end and this can be anything from a stick or couple of shirts to an overturned garden bench. Improvise. A handy rule is that anything over waist height is a free kick - this helps to minimize the stoppage time involved in going around to the neighbors to retrieve the ball. Goals are scored by the ball going in the goal or hitting the stick at the opponent's end and you usually decide on the length of the game or first team to score so many goals.

CRICKET
An Australian backyard favorite. All you need is a tennis ball and a bat, a stick will do at a stretch. A rubbish bin makes a good wicket. As with soccer, it is normally played on a large field with 11 players a side. So long as you have at least two, you can fashion some form of the game. Teams take turns to bat and runs may be scored by hitting the ball and running, usually across the yard. There may be designated marks for scoring more than one run (hitting the fence is generally worth 4 runs). Batsmen are given out by being caught, bowled (the ball hitting the wicket) or run out (ball thrown at the wicket before the batsman completes a run). Backyard cricket requires variations on normal cricket rules and it is best to include one where any ball hit over the fence is out. You play a number of innings and this usually depends on the number of players.

BRITISH BULLDOG
This one can get a bit physical, at least it used to when I played it at school. It involves having a group of people and one person is designated as the bulldog. The rest of the group stand at one end of the yard and at a designated signal, they attempt to get to the other side of the yard without getting 'caught'. You need to determine what is 'caught' and it can be anything from being touched to a full on tackle. Anyone caught becomes a bulldog and you keep going until one person is left. If you want to, you can score points for how many runs players make without being caught. Generally, no-one keeps score and you just keep playing until everyone has started out a game as bulldog.

All these games will get the old blood flow going and are played to very localized versions of rules designed to suit the geography of the yard. Although some games keep score, most of the time no-one does and you just keep playing until everyone is too tired to care. Or the food is ready.

Learn more about this author, Jimmy Nightingale.
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