To those who are less familiar, the Shrovetide Football Match is played for two days – on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday in Ashbourne, a small town in Derbyshire, England. The game is getting played every year for the final seven to eight centuries. The origin of the game is nevertheless shrouded in mystery and this is far more because the relevant records were destroyed in a fire breakout in 1890 in the workplace of the Royal Shrovetide Committee.
There are several versions about the origin of the game. Even so, one of the popular stories floating about suggests that the ball was in truth the severed head of an executed criminal that was thrown amongst the spectators – though there is not a lot of historical evidence to support this claim.
The game typically commences at 2.00 pm in the afternoon and ends late night at about 10.00 pm. If a goal is scored by either team just before 5.00 pm, the game is said to have ended or continued with a new ball.
Although it is widely known as Shrovetide Football, the ball is seldom kicked with the feet and rather players move it through the town by hugging.
The two opposing teams are identified by the names – Up’Ards and the Down’Ards. The team members of Up’Ards are traditionally are those belonging to north of Henmore Brook. The Down’Ards team members are those hailing from south of the brook. The two aim posts are typically set three miles apart – 1 aim post at Sturston Mill exactly where the Up’Ards are supposed to shoot, the other objective post at Clifton Mill exactly where the Down’Ards are needed to score.
The Shrovetide Football Match is in the nature of a moving brawl exactly where 1-half of the town is pitted against the other. The town along with the surrounding countryside is the playing field. A number of thousand players from each team oppose each other.
The game is played with a special ball, bigger than the usual football size and the ball is stuffed with Portuguese pork to enable the ball to float and not sink if it lands in the river. The nearby craftsmen hand-paint the ball and every single time the ball is goaled it is repainted with the name of the scorer and the ball is presented to him. The actual approach of scoring a aim entails a player hitting the ball against the aim post 3 successive occasions.
Records have been maintained since 1891 and documents showing specifics of each game and names of scorers are available. The records reveal that the game was cancelled only twice – the very first time in 1968 and once more in the year 2001 and on both occasions, it was due to the fact of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Strangely, the games were played uninterruptedly even in the course of the globe war years. Football fans visiting Ashbourne can see the records displayed on wooden plaques at The Green Man Hotel and the specifics are regularly updated.
Though Ashbourne is a modest picturesque English town that is fairly peaceful throughout the year, it suddenly comes to life during the annual Royal-Shrovetide-Football-Match which attracts enormous crowds from all over.
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