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Every year on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday (which this year fell on Feb 17-18), a market town in the Derbyshire Dales is taken over medieval football game that makes even the wildest Sunday league matches look tame. It’s called Royal Shrovetide Football and it’s been played in Ashbourne every year since the 1600s
So, what exactly is Royal Shrovetide Football? Well, the local tourist board dubs it the ‘world’s oldest game of football’, but it doesn’t much resemble association football. The ball can be kicked, carried or thrown but is usually moved through the town in a series of ‘hugs’, which are like giant rugby scrums. There’s no limit on team sizes, with ‘hugs’ sometimes consisting of hundreds of people.
There are two teams, the Up'Ards and the Down'Ards, and your side is decided by which part of the town you were born in. The game is started (‘turned up’) on a plinth in a town centre car park and the aim is for each team to carry the ball back to its own goal. The ball is ‘goaled’ when a player taps the team’s millstone with it three times.
In terms of rules, well, there aren’t many. Cemeteries, churchyards and the memorial gardens are out of bounds but everywhere else is fair game (shops and pubs are usually boarded up). Murder or manslaughter is prohibited and excessive violence is apparently frowned upon.
In other words, Shrovetide Football is one heck of a sight. This year photographer Chris Bethell went down to Ashbourne to witness the Up'Ards win with three goals and document it all for Time Out – here are the highlights:
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