Anyone remember "Páirc"?

Lone Shark · Post by **Lone Shark** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 11:04 pm

Board game from the eighties, played using green and white dice. Don't know why this came into my mind today, but it did. It actually was reasonable good, if it wasn't for the fact that it was flawed by the way that it didn't take you long to figure out that since every point had a 50/50 chance of becoming a goal, taking points didn't make sense.

Still, in a house with plenty of board games and two sisters who normally had an aversion to anything sport related, it got it's fair share of air time. Anyone else remember this?

Bord na Mona man · Post by **Bord na Mona man** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:21 pm

Yeah, I had Pairc when I was young.
It didn't stand the test of time and I presume was thrown out.
I remember you had to spend ages putting the cardboard players into their plastic bases.
After a while the players became a bit worn. You were given teams for each of the 4 provinces.
It was never developed on or re-released.

Treasurer · Post by **Treasurer** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:51 pm

Yep, think it's still in the bottom of a wardrobe actually. That and the old "Wembley" game.

The Biff · Post by **The Biff** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:29 pm

We didn't have Páirc but we did have Wembley. We even worked out our own short version of the game, just to play off the FA Cup. Darlington was my lucky team; amazzing how many times they managed to beat the First Division teams.

Oskar · Post by **Oskar** » Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:04 am

Oh yes, good old Páirc. Came across our old copy at the back of a wardrobe today. I don't remember playing this a lot when I was a youngster, mainly because it seemed to go on forever and wasn't as exciting as Kerplunk or Downfall.

If the scoresheet inside is anything to go by, it would appear that the game has sat unplayed and unloved in the box since 1989.

The Box. Boldly claims to "A Thrilling Gaelic Board Game". This being the 80s, there's the obligatory Guaranteed Irish symbol on the front and not a hint of corporate sponsorship - yet.

The board. Some blasts from the past on the advertising hoardings here. Say Cheese sponsored by the National Dairy Council, Irish Permanent in the days before they had that bloke from the Sopranos advocating free banking, AIB before they changed their logo, Ola Oil, B+I Line, a mysterious organisation called An Biúró Óige and some fella making hurleys down in Limerick.

Two dice and a shaker. Note the choice of colours for these.

The referee cards. There were also Break of the Ball cards which were white and didn't have a picture of a ref with a naff haircut on them.

Brings back childhood memories of a game we used to play which involved skelping footballs with hurls.

If you fancied changing codes, you'd have to take all the little cardboardy players out of their plastic bases and replace them with more cardboardy men.

Lone Shark · Post by **Lone Shark** » Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:49 pm

That is a far more thorough rundown than I ever thought possible. Quality work there Oskar.

Incidentally, is it weird that looking at that Ulster footballer, I knew straight away that it was the number 8? Worrying.

Oskar · Post by **Oskar** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:18 am

More worrying than that is that I went to check to see if you were right about the Ulster footballer being No. 8 (you were)

turk · Post by **turk** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:05 am

I note in your excellent pictures Oskar that the lads are hurling with the big O'Neills ball. This is normal though. If i remember there was two balls provided - the football and a minute sliothar which was the size of one of them glitter balls that they put on top of the Christmas cakes. Use of the infeasibly small sliothar resulted in lads knocking over all the players as they fumbled about trying to pick it up to move it the seven or eight spaces that appeared on the white "die". Most hurling games would result in the sliothar being replaced with the larger ball after a couple of moves, as players lay on the ground everywhere - a bit like letting chris johnson out at them

Lone Shark · Post by **Lone Shark** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:52 pm

Oskar wrote:More worrying than that is that I went to check to see if you were right about the Ulster footballer being No. 8 (you were)

I remember as a kid I took views on each of the players based on their stance. In the hurling, number two looked like he was taking a woeful weak stroke and as such he looked like a very weak corner back. He often got swapped with number four, for reasons you'll see later....

My first hurling trainer always told me how to hold the hurl when you weren't on the ball so as to be prepared, and then demonstrated a load of stances that were incorrect. Impressionable 8 year old that I was, this got swallowed as gospel, so based on this number 5 was a terrible hurler and number 6 was well prepared and manning the defence well. Number 7 looked like he was about to chop legs off, so he often got moved to midfield, partnering number 9 who was looking out to shoulder lads if I recall.

Up front, I always thought the number 15 looked very nippy, I often targetted him with the ball, as opposed to number 14 who didn't look like a goal poacher at all. If anything his stance looked like that of a half back. I regularly moved number 8 (a ground hurler) to full forward. Numer 12 really disappointed me - he was quare lazy. 10 and 15 were the key forwards for me.

I never really used the footballers much - Leinster were a hurling team after all.

I understand this is not doing my rep any good whatsoever, but nostalgia is great .....