Cambridge District Scout Archive
Cock fighting is a game mentioned in Scouting for Boys. Clearly named after the blood sport using gamecocks it does not seek to shed blood. It requires strength, stamina and balance; the second two generally more than compensating for the first.
GAMES TO DEVELOP STRENGTH
Boxing, wrestling, rowing, swimming, skipping, cock-fighting, are all valuable health aids to developing strength, but climbing is best of all.
Requiring no equipment, two competitors squat with arms folded and in that position attempt to barge the opponent off balance. Barging shoulder to shoulder only is, perhaps, the key to active maneuvering rather than static strength. No rules were given but rising from the crouch avoids falling over and so a loss. A variant is described in Kipling’s ‘Stalky & Co.’. The assumption in the book, which predates Scouting for Boys, is that the game is widely known although Kipling adroitly describes the process without telling us that he is doing so. However well known the game may have been in the British Empire his audience was international and the game certainly went under many names.
This is the only photograph I have come across depicting this activity. I do not recall it as an activity mentioned in troop logs but in 1930 it gains a passing reference in the Trinity Rover Crew Log books as ‘…British Bulldog and Cockfighting, another rough sport.’
The active presence of a referee in the picture above suggests the need for an on going risk assessment as well as an arbiter.
JWR Archivist Mar 2022
Cambridge District Scout Archive 