Royal Shrovetide Football: Wild in the Streets

By: Bob | April 5th, 2007

We’ve spent some time looking at odd modern sports that have been derived from football, but what about sports that may have been precursors to the game we have all come to love? Each year, citizens in the town of Ashbourne in Derbshire, England take part in a football match on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. It is believed that they started doing this in the 12th Century and that they have been playing the Royal Shrovetide Football match every year for the past 350 years, making it the longest continuous sporting event in the world.

When you look at the video of the match being played below, you will see that the rules of Royal Shrovetide Football are slightly different than the modern game. For one thing, you can use your hands. For another thing, the only rules are that you cannot commit murder or manslaughter, the ball can’t be carried by a motorized vehicle, the ball must not be hidden, and cemeteries, churchyards and the town memorial garden are off limits. Play after 10pm is also strictly against the rules.

According to Wikipedia:

The two teams that play the game are known as the Up’Ards and the Down’Ards. Up’Ards traditionally are those town members born north of Henmore Brook, which runs through the town, and Down’Ards are those born south of the river. There are two goal posts 3 miles apart, one at Sturston Mill (where the Up’Ards attempt to score), the other at Clifton Mill (where the Down’Ards score). Although the Mills have long since been demolished part of their mill stones still stand on the bank of the river at each location and indeed themselves once served as the scoring posts. In 1996 the scoring posts were replaced once again by new smaller mill stones mounted onto purpose-built stone structures, which are still in use to this day and require the players to actually be in the river in order to ‘goal’ a ball, as this was seen as more challenging.

This ancient sport of anarchy and mayhem is the subject of a documentary called Wild in the Streets that is expected to be released in the United States later in 2007. Here is a clip from another documentary called The Hardest Goal: