Shrovetide, the most amazing, entertaining & action-packed football of all times!

This post is a bit late but I just have to write about it. Little Ashbourne turned into a busy beehive in march when several 1000 people came to watch and participate in the Royal Shrovetide match. The game exists since at least the 12th century, where it, so the legend, was played with heads of decapitated people. The only rule was not to kill each other.

Today things have changed a little but the idea is still the same. There are two teams, Up'ards (born north of the river through Ashbourne) and Down'ards (born south of the river) that try to score at "goals"(old millstones, which they have to tap the ball against) that are three miles apart. The game takes two days and if the ball (which is now used instead for heads) is goaled before 5pm on the first day, another ball is turned up and the play continues until 10pm, or until someone else scores.

 

Ashbourne is geting ready...

...have fun, but don´t break my windows!

The moment before the ball is dropped into the crowd

I have not experienced anything like Shrovetide football in my whole live. It was crazy! The actual players are not that many, maybe 30-40 people, which a bit like in rugby, push and pull to get the ball (which being a bystander you hardly ever see at all). The men who form the core are surrounded by a huge crowd of non-players who watch in excitement. Adrenaline levels rise when the "core" starts moving and once it does, all you do is run. You really do not want to be in its way. The game can go anywhere through town and only church yards, the hospital area and private properties are off limits. You never know beforehand which way the ball will go and while sometimes the bulk moves very slowly, other times things happen very fast.  S. and I came too close once because the core quickly changed direction and came towards us instead of going down in the river, as I had expected. We had to hide behind a wall in order to avoid getting dragged along by the masses. Even though this might seem like a rather brutal game, it is not. It´s more like festival that involves a whole town and despite the massive amount of people I have not seen a single fight. To the contrary, everybody seemed to be in the best of moods and people also know that, if anything serious happens they would lose their game game forever because it will be prohibited by law.

Here are a couple more pictures to give you a better impression:  

Ball and players are down in the river...

...they later cross the duckpond...

... and are finally back on land where we also got to see the ball. Yay!!!

Two trucks got stuck for quite a while when they got in the games way.