 Ball games are, of course, a test of skill and coordination in all playgrounds, but they're also part of a long cultural history. Games played by girls with one or two balls, sometimes against a wall, sometimes not, and accompanied by rhymes such as the popular one, two, three, O'Leary, or Oliver Twist, can you do this, were collected across Britain throughout the 20th century. These games, variously called planesies, sevensies, exercises and other names, seem to have largely disappeared from school playgrounds. Others, however, have taken their place, and these are played by boys and girls. One popular game is Champ, also known as Squares, Scrubby, or Four Square, where players hit the ball with their hand into chalked squares on the playground. Other ball games and ball sports still current in the playground are dodgeball, basketball, cricket, and rounders. About the most popular and enduring form of ball game is football. Football has become the dominant ball game of many playgrounds, but all is not quite as it seems. In virtually all playgrounds, it's impossible to play 11-a-side standard football. Children, instead, improvise footballing games using, say, one goal only, everyone against everyone else, three goals and in, and so on. Again, as with all the other games, football is used as a source, which the children transform to fit the participants of the moment and the contingencies of place. Children may also practice individual skills and tricks like spot, headers and volleys, wembley and keepy-uppy. Football has perhaps the most conspicuous cultural dimension, and many children will enthusiastically tell you which team they support, which player they idolise, which stadium they visited or aspire to visit. Again, it's worth remembering that not all children enjoy games of physical prowess. We came across one who had found an ingenious way around this, while still engaging with footballing culture, which was to improvise football commentaries on the playground in the style and tone of professional commentators complete with imaginary microphone.