Inside the World's Most Dangerous Ball Game

From the outside this vast, brawling, barrelling mass of beards, bald spots, tattoos and topknots looks vaguely comical as it careens one way then another. But this is a game where spectators who get too close get swept into the middle of the snarling, savage beast.

Which is why one moment I’m making observations in my notebook – “bit homoerotic” – and the next, I’ve unwittingly gone Gonzo and am right in the middle of the fucker; my breath and notebook gone; my face in an arm pit; my worldview suddenly narrowed to nothing more than fists and feet and fury. Oh, and a bloke behind me shouting sage words of advice into my ear: “Start pushing forward, you soft cunt, or I’ll do you myself.” Blimey. Right-O, chap.

This is Royal Shrovetide Football: Perhaps the world’s most insane game of…well, they call it football but you certainly wouldn’t find Pep trying to mastermind a victory here.

Every Pancake Day, in the main car park of the Peak District’s Ashbourne town, a large cork and leather ball is lobbed into the air at 2PM. Then hundreds of people – local blokes mainly, but anyone can join in – spend the next eight hours trying to kick, throw, run and wrestle said ball to a millstone on the south side of town – while hundreds of others aim to get it to one on the north side. That’s the first half. The next day, Ash Wednesday, they do it all over again.

The match, played annually since at least 1667, is battled across streets, bridges, fields, woods and people’s back gardens. Players regularly end up on roofs and in the river. Within an hour of this year’s throw-up, a town centre wall has been demolished in the scrum. Half an hour later, someone’s garden fence went the same way. For good reason, residents here park their cars out of town for the duration; shop windows are boarded up; organisers tell people not to bring valuables – including children – along.

It’s not just property that suffers. Injuries and hospitalisations come as standard in Shrovetide, maybe because there are just two main rules: You can’t move the ball using a motorised vehicle and, um, murder should not be committed. “Unnecessary violence is frowned on,” according to organisers, but it’s not technically banned.

This means black eyes, busted noses and bruised ribs – not to mention ripped clothing and missing shoes – are everywhere today. Hayden Williams, 16, wears his own bleeding face like a badge of honour.

“Getting injured is an Ashbourne rite of passage,” he tells VICE. What will his parents say? “My dad’s born and bred here,” replies Williams. “He says get stuck in.”

There’s worse injuries, too. Someone dislocated their shoulder when trapped against a tree, and a handful of people are reportedly treated for concussion. Most years, there are broken bones.

One player, 46-year-old Will Hopewell, has broken his leg twice – once in 2009 when he fell beneath the scrum, and again in 2019 when he was shoved while in the river. “My foot was between two rocks,” he says. “I heard the snap.” Why does he keep playing? “The camaraderie,” says Hopewell. “Anyway a broken leg soon heals.” Which is very true, if you count three to six months of recovery time as “soon”.

Even being an actual heir to the throne doesn’t save you from such treatment, either. In 1928, Prince Edward (AKA the future King Edward VIII) performed the throw-up that began that year’s game. Legend has it, he then dived enthusiastically into the scrum but had to be pulled out with a bloodied nose within five minutes.

Back to my own time in the scrum – known locally as "The Hug – and it’s similarly, mercifully short. It’s around 4PM on the second day, the score is still 0-0, and play has grunted and groaned its way into a series of farmers fields on the north side of town. It’s blue sky above, but a quagmire underfoot.

I’m looking down at my notebook, jotting down those notes about homoerotic vibe and how play has basically just barrelled right through a barbed wire fence (impressive lack of shits given by the lad who more-or-less impales his leg). Then I look up – is it too dramatic to say this happens in slow motion? – to see the mass is bearing down on and around me.

How does it feel? More fun than I imagined, actually. A cloud of pheromones, a rush of adrenaline and a roar of sporting cliches like, “Keep it tight, keep it bloody tight!” A thought flits briefly through my mind – perhaps I’ll touch the sacred ball? Then, just as quickly, I feel my hood grabbed and I’m on the outside again, pretty much on my arse in the mud. I make a mental note, this time: stick to five-a-side.

No-one exactly knows how this Shrovetide Football ritual started. One theory suggests it was sparked following a public execution, when the severed head was thrown into the crowd and an impromptu game began. Yet, the paradox is that beneath its surface of violence, this game is unambiguously about something else – community, tradition and the heritage that bind us to the places we’re born.

Like many Midlands and northern towns, Ashbourne (population 9,000) hasn’t had much to shout about during the last half century. Official figures show it’s one of the Peak District’s most deprived areas. But it does have the world’s biggest mediaeval football game and pride in that is immense.

One or two other British towns actually host similar Shrovetide games – like Atherstone where a video of insane fighting went viral this year – but none are anywhere near on the scale of Ashbourne.

Shrovetide is bigger than Christmas here. The pubs do more trade on these two days than they do over the entire festive week; local businesses shut down like it’s a bank holiday; the town’s schools – we’re not making this up – time their half term holidays around it.

Today, the entire town and thousands of visitors are out to watch. There are teenagers sipping tinnies on the edge of the action and old-timers wading through the river to get a better view. It’s a carnival – equal parts social glue, economic driver and direct link to history.

“It’s the lifeblood of the town,” says estate agent Helen Ellis, 38, who’s been coming to watch pretty much her entire life. “When this one is all over tonight, people will start looking forward to the next one,” she says, slurping from her can of strawberry daiquiri. “The media focuses on the fighting, but that’s all forgotten the moment the game ends. The real legacy is how it brings people together.”

One’s initiation into this tradition really does begin at birth. The entire town is basically divided into the two teams: Those born on south of the River Henmore are “Down’ards”, aiming to get the ball to the old Clifton Mill, and those born north are “Up’ards”, aiming to get it to Sturston Mill. When someone scores – by hitting the ball three times against a specially installed millstone – play begins all over again in the town centre.

“Goaling”, as it’s known, means local hero status and free drinks for weeks. Twelve years ago, builder Simon Fisher did it – the ball broke out of The Hug to him, about half a mile from Sturston Mill, so he picked it up and started running.

“I thought any moment I’d get smashed from behind, but I just kept going,” says the 34-year-old. “I don’t know, I must’ve got lucky because I had half the town chasing me. I couldn’t believe it when I scored, I still can’t believe it now.” Fisher appears overwhelmed just talking about it. “It’s a big thing,” he says. “You never think it could be you.”

His team won three-one that year. This time round, it’s much tighter: A single goal ultimately decides it when the Up’ards finally strike their millstone, just before 8PM on the final day. Scorer Tom Allen is carried, as per tradition, all the way back to the town centre on his teammate’s shoulders, to the Green Man hotel where the goal is officially verified and he’s assured of a place in Ashbourne history.

What a moment! Though not for everyone, of course. As the town’s pubs fill up afterwards, Will Hopewell – him of the broken leg and himself a Down’ard – heads to the Wheel Inn to drown his sorrows. Here, behind the bar, hang dozens of Shrovetide balls from years gone by. He considers them ruefully.

How much does defeat hurt? “I think I'd rather have broken my leg again than lose,” says Hopewell, before pausing for a moment. “But there’s always next year,” he smiles.