Shirts v skins

[SimonFitzwilliam]

Longtime lurker, but wondered if you had knowledge on this.

When I was at school we used bibs to distinguish teams in indoor team sports. This is obviously some time ago, and I was aware older relatives had done "shirts v skins" which I guess is cheaper! My assumption is this is no longer done in school sports? The shirts v skins I mean. I would expect it not to be.

Is thus something your dh might remember?

I’ve never heard of skins vs shirts in a school setting (or it wasn’t in my school at least), but i do remember it happening in parks etc.

Do you mean some kids take their tops off?

That’s never happened in my years as a child or teacher

Nope not here either - bibs or no bibs usually if there wasn’t enough.

No. I think they tend to have a set of bibs now which cost very little.

You sometimes still see guys doing it in the park playing fields on a sunny day, but some of them will strip at the least hint of sun.

Skins in a school pe setting now means close fitting lycra based tops, often worn under shirts. Definitely not real skin!

DS's secondary has mixed sex sports. This would definitely not be a thing at his school.

DS used to play shirts v skins with his friends in the park but not at school.

As pp says, in a school context it might refer to the base layer kids now wear for sports under their top. So sports tops v base layers.

it was definitely commonplace at 20th century secondary schools.

very rare now. eg my kids' football club has two sets of bibs in different colours per age group, I think they're a very cheap bit of kit.

[I'm a man] When I was at secondary school in the 80s we did shirts vs skins for football and basketball. It was awful.

My son plays shirts vs skins in the park but not at school

Yes it happened when I was much younger - decades ago.

Absolutely not done now though. Ds’s school has reversible games shirts so half the boys wear their shirts on the other side for a quick division in games lessons - quite clever!