The Shrove Tuesday Atherstone Ball Game

Having posted about the Olney Pancake race, dating from 1445, the other day another, even older, Shrove Tuesday custom came into my in-box. Part of today’s post from the Catholic online news service The Pillar had a piece in it by the editor Ed Condon about the Atherstone Shrove Tuesday Ball Game, part of which I am copying and sharing:

“Rugby football” or “union football” split with “association football” (the one where you actually use your feet) in 1823 because of something William Webb Ellis did during a school match at Rugby. Both have, by comparison to the U.S. derivative, fairly easy rules to learn. And both are themselves descendants of an older form of the game, so-called “real football,” or “medieval football,” which is still played in a few places.

I bring all this up because probably the marquee match of the year is held, by tradition, on Shrove Tuesday in the English town of Atherstone — and this year’s game drew a crowd of thousands.

I say it drew a crowd of thousands, I should point out that there is no clear line between player and spectator and the gameplay is fairly simple: a largish ball is released into the crowd at 3 p.m., and whoever has possession of it when the game ends at 5 p.m. wins.

In real football, the other rules number exactly two:

1. The game must be played only along the town’s main drag, Long Street, along which all the shopfronts and other buildings are boarded up for the day.

2. You may not kill another player.

Those are all the rules.

As you might imagine, things get a little rowdy.

This year’s winners were a three-man team of local lads, Kieran Marshall, Lewis Cooper, and Scott Wright. Lewis had majority possession of the ball when time was called but shared the victory with his “punchers,” as he called them. All three are looking forward to defending their title next year.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that the game triggers a wave of hyperventilating news stories about “brutal violence” and “carnage” each year. But it might surprise you to learn that everyone has a great time and hardly anyone gets injured, beyond bruises and a bloody nose.

So far as I can tell, the last person to suffer a serious injury was a match steward in 2020, who had a heart attack even though he wasn’t playing — and he kicked the game off this year.

The whole thing seems so much more healthy, and cheerful, than the weird sublimated violence of American football. I think we should just import it. It might even be a game the city of Philadelphia could actually win.

The game is said to have originated in 1199, the year King John acceded to the throne, so it was already long established when the battle of Bosworth was fought nearby in 1485. A look online took me to two entries on Wikipedia which give more information about the game and its history. The first one is about the north Warwickshire town and its history, including the game, and which can be seen at Atherstone. The other is just about the game, and is at Atherstone Ball Game. You actually need to read both to get the full story.

Two other towns have a preserved a similar Shrovetide game, and both, coincidentally begin with the letter A - Ashbourne in Derbyshire and Alnwick in Northumberland. There is more about these games, courtesy of Wikipedia, at Royal Shrovetide Football which is about the game played in As hbourne, and is an article which has an account with considerable historical background to these ancient forms of football, and at The Alnwick Shrovetide Football Match. 

The somewhat similar Shrove Tuesday rituals and ball game of the Purbeck Marblers at Corfe in Dorset are described in Shrove Tuesday Football Ceremony of the Purbeck Marblers

It is clear that such games as these and others, such as the Haxey Hood competed for at Epiphany, and the others in the Ashbourne link above, were held to mark significant days in the liturgical calendar as popular events to let off steam and burn up excess energy.