SIX-WAY TUG-OF-WAR

Is there a version of tug-of-war with more than two teams? I mean, imagine six teams gathered around a knotted web of rope…

It would have to be that, wouldn’t it? A central knot of taped up ropes with six ropes radiating outwards. On the ground, you’d need a chalked up circle, perhaps even split into six equal segments, so that a team could win by pulling the central knot out of their segment, towards themselves.

There’d be a lot of tension on that knot. All kinds of angular forces too - pulled from six different directions by six powerful teams, each doing their level best, heels carving up the mud, sweat pouring, all in an attempt to outpull not one, but five other squads.

Inevitably, one team would fall over and the knot would ping all over the place as they let go. What then? A restart with five teams? Reposition the segments to 72 degrees instead of 60?

Why am I not organising the Olympics?

Anyway, I was thinking about that knot; pulled mercilessly in all directions. The tension would be unbearable. It would have to be tied in such a particular way too - a sort of six-way sailor’s knot so carefully woven that it might take Baden Powell himself to unpick it. Two-dimensional TOW is probably far easier, especially for the situations when it might be suggested - country-fairs, Navy sports day, and perhaps a particular type of wedding after a particular amount of alcohol. Probably not the time to float my idea of six-way tug-of-war.

The tension eh. Unbearable.