[Image: BBC Derby / Facebook]
Every year, thousands of people descend on a small town in the English countryside to watch a two-day game of mass street football that, to the casual observer, could easily be mistaken for a riot.
Royal Shrovetide is a centuries-old ball game played in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, that looks nothing like the world’s most popular sport. Or any other game, for that matter.
Played between two teams of hundreds of players, the aim is to “goal” at either end of a five-kilometer section of town that could include rivers, hedgerows, high streets and just about anything or anywhere except for churchyards, cemeteries and places of worship.
“It’s like tug of war without the rope,” says Natalie Wakefield, 43, who lives locally and has marshaled the event in the past.
“It’s mad in the best possible way.”
There are few rules, but “no murder” was one of the earliest for the game that dates back to at least the 1600s.
Good players need to be “hard, aggressive and authoritative,” says Mark Harrison, who scored a goal in 1986 and is one of multiple generations of scorers in his family.
“You can’t practice. You’ve just got to get in there and be rough. I am a rugby player … I’m also an ex-boxer so that helps.”
Harrison had the honour of carrying the then-Prince Charles on his shoulder when the now-King of England opened the game in 2003.
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The origin of the game is less unifying and splits the town into two halves between the “Up’ards” and the “Down’ards,” determined by whether players are born on the north or south of the River Henmore.
While Ashbourne is a peaceful town at other times, Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday each year sees shop fronts boarded up and doorways barricaded. “Play Zone” signs are strapped to lampposts, warning motorists not to park there and risk their cars being scrummed.
Play begins with an opening ceremony in the center of town, where the national anthem and “Auld Lang Syne” are sung. Competitors are then reminded, “You play the game at your own risk,” before a leather ball the size of a large pumpkin is thrown into the crowd.
Then, all hell breaks loose.
[Source: AP]
