The Day I Learnt The Rules Of The Game!

Rule One: Don't kill anyone!

Rule Two: Stay out of the church and the churchyard.

We were told that there are only these two rules ... it certainly grabs your attention. Then we were told that the shops board up their windows in preparation for The Game, streets are cleared of parked cars, there is no limit to the size of each team and play can last all day. This was obviously not an ordinary game of football! This is the Royal Shrovetide Football Match, played every year on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday in Ashbourne in Derbyshire.

It's played by two teams called the Up'Ards and the Down'Ards, traditionally based on which side of the river you were born. The game starts at 2:00pm in the town centre where, after rousing renditions of Auld Lang's Syne and the National Anthem, the ball is thrown in and the game begins. The aim is to carry the ball back to your own team's goal and to hit the goal three times to score. The goals are three miles apart with the river running through the middle of the playing area! They used to be mills but since they were demolished, mill stones have been installed on the banks of the river and they now serve as the scoring posts. Once play starts it continues until a goal is scored, when a new game is started. If it gets to 10:00pm without a goal being scored, play is stopped and they continue the following day.

It's called the Royal Shrovetide Football Match because in 1928 the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) 'turned up' the ball and started play. He played in the match for a while and ended up with a bloodied nose for his trouble.

The ball is larger than a standard football and is filled with cork (to help it float in the river section of the game). The match ball is retained either by the goal scorer or, if no goal is scored, by the person who 'turned up' the ball to start the match. It's possible to see some of these balls, repainted with the winner's details, in some of the local pubs but I didn't get to see any on this trip.

We chose a good time to visit Ashbourne as this year there is a community project celebrating 'Our Game', as they call it. It's about 5,000 terracotta figures representing the supporters and the players and is on display in St Oswald's Church in the town. Of course I took some photos ...

I've include a video of this year's match if you are interested.