A historic football game played since the 1100s has returned to the north of England this Shrove Tuesday.
The Royal Shrovetide Football Match is played every Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday in Ashbourne, Derbyshire – and has been since at least the 1660s.
Shrovetide ball games have been played in England since Henry II was on the throne between 1154-89.
It’s not known exactly when the Ashbourne match started due to a fire in the committee office in the 1890s which destroyed early records – but that hasn’t stopped locals turning out every year to maintain the legacy.
In fact the match has only been cancelled three times since 1891: in 1968 and 2001 due to outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease, and in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Each game is played for 16 hours in total, from 2-10pm on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday.
Play starts at a plinth in the town centre, and the ball is moved towards either goal three miles apart via a series of ‘hugs’, not too different from a rugby scrum.
Kicking, carrying and throwing the ball is also allowed, but the match is mainly made up of hugs.
If a goal is scored (or the ball is goaled) before 6pm, a new ball is released in the town centre and the person who scored is carried on their teammate’s shoulders into the courtyard of the nearby Green Man Royal Hotel.
For those on a time crunch, if the first goal is scored after 6pm, the game is wrapped up for the day.
But how are teams decided? Well it’s all to do with where you were born.
The two teams are known as the Up’ards and the Down’ards, with the Up’ards born north of Henmore Brook which runs through Ashbourne, and the Down’ards south of the river.
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Up’ards try to score goals at the posts near Sturston Mill, while the Down’ards try to score at Clifton Mill. The mills themselves are long gone, but part of their millstones still stand on the riverbank and have been used as scoring posts themselves.
The ball is goaled when a player hits it against the millstone three times in a row – but since 1996 players have had to be in the river in order for the goal to count.
Often the scorer is decided en route to the goal, and the honour usually goes to a local, but tourists and visitors are welcome to join the game.
Forget five-a-side, there aren’t any limits to the number of players on each team, and in preparation for the match shops in the town centre board up their windows and drivers park their cars out of the way.
The game starts when the ball is ‘turned up’ from a special plinth in the town centre – and it became known as ‘Royal’ after two kings kicked off the games while they were still Princes of Wales.
King Edward VIII turned up the ball in 1928 and suffered a bloody nose in the fracas, and in 2003 King Charles III threw the ball into play.
The ball used is larger than a standard football, and usually filled with cork to help it float when it ends up in the river during scoring.
Whoever scores the goal receives the ball to keep, painted by local craftspeople with their name and design.
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