“Without killing, please”

Every year thousands of people go to a small town in the English countryside to testify within two days a Mass Street football match that, for casual observers, can easily be confused with a chaos. It’s about Royal Shrovetide, A centenary ball game played Ashbourne, DerbyshireAnd that, frankly, it does not resemble the most popular sport in the world, or anything else.

“It’s like pulling a rope without a rope,” he said Natalie Wakefield43, who lived in the town and became an event monitor in the past. “It’s mad at the best possible sense.”

It is played between the two road teams -the players, and the goal is to score a goal at each end of a five -kilometer sector that can lead to the game through rivers, fences, main streets and almost anything or place, except for cemeteries and worship areas.

The ball is thrown into a crowd moving like a giant flock, as each team tries to bring it to its desired goal. The rules are limited, but “not killing” is one of the first stipulations of the game, which began in the nineteenth century.

Good players have to be “hard, aggressive and authoritatively,” he says Mark Harrison, The “marked goal” in 1986 and part of many generations of scorers in his family. “You can’t practice,” he added Harrison, 62 years. He stopped competing seven years ago and now serves hamburgers to many viewers from a street food truck.

“You just have to go in there and be poor. I’m a rugby player … I’m also a former boxer, so it can help.”

Harrison She has the honor to take the after Prince Carlos On his shoulder in 2003 King of England now opened that year’s game. “He loves it!” Harrison said.

This event, celebrated each year during Carnival Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, is a reason for immense pride for the inhabitants of Ashbourne, in the peak district of Derbyshire. However, such a single tradition is actually based on dividing the city into two halves: the ‘up’ards and the’ down’ards’, depending on whether players are born north or south of the river Henmore.

On any other day, Ashbourne, About three hours by car from LondonIt is quiet and attractive -with a major street full of antique, coffees and pubs. Among the guests are hikers, cyclists and camists. Within two days, everything changes: large wooden boards have been nailed to protect the store’s facades. The barricades are placed on the doors. The ‘game zone’ posters are tied to street lamps, warning motorists not to parquer vehicles, which may be pushed out of the force of hordes of players trying to move the ball.

In contrast, colorful flags reach the top of the building in the building and the Juerguistas gather, eat and drink like a street party. Parents with babies in strollers watch from a safe distance. School holidays in the area have long moved to match the festival.

“There are people who come, drink and think: ‘It’s crazy, a show, and now that I’ve seen it, I can’t do anything,” he said, “he said Wakefieldalso used to inform about Royal Shrovetide For the local newspaper. “And there are people where all of this attracts her, getting the beauty and complexity of the game and it follows each year.”

The game begins with an opening ceremony in a parking lot, nothing less in the middle of the city. The national anthem and “Auld Lang Syne” are sung. Competitors reminded that “they play at their own risk.” A leather ball was thrown, the size of a large pumpkin, stuffed with cork and painted with ornaments, called a “hug” by the players. And they are being practiced.

As a sport for viewers, it can be confused. Within eight hours of playing, starting at 2:00 pm players wear their own clothes, such as football or rugby t -shirts, rather than matching uniforms. On Tuesday it took more than 45 minutes to release the ball to the parking lot. Viewers get bins, walls and banks of the park, and stretch their neck to look at the lanes and try to have a better vision. Did anyone ask if the ball was seen? Someone believes he can align with a tree to the right of the parking lot, but is uncertain.

Later, that same day, the ball had not been seen for about two hours, until the rumors began to rotate that the down’ards scored what was the only goal in the two days of the game, for a success at 1-0.

With so many players, the hug can be difficult to maneuver, but it speeds up quickly, causing many viewers to try to look closer, suddenly the action.

The ball can handle and kick. The game can be furious, with players running after a loose ball wherever he is taken, dive into the river and up and down the other line. While the force is required on the arm, the runners need to be quick to escape the ball. “There’s a little approach to the fact that someone pretends to have a ball in the middle of the arm,” he said Wakefield. “And he passes it quietly into a corridor that needs to be sneezed out, I thought that in a very careless way, and went into an alley.”

A famous goal in 2019 took place because he did not realize that he had no ball until it was too late. Hidden two student meters away, the ball passed a player to run, almost no obstacles, for 2.5 kilometers before scoring.

The goal was scored when the ball was hit three times against one of the rocks of the mill located at any end of the town, in Clifton or Sturston.

The scorers compared the achievement of the winner of the Gold Olympic. They were taken to the shoulders, walking into the city and celebrated as heroes. “Imagine playing with Manchester United At their best times and be on WEMBLEY In a final cup. Marked Gol de la Victoria. Scorers also stayed with the balls, returning to themselves and becoming an important family owner. “I live it and breathe it,” he said Janet Richardson75, from Ashbourne, to attend Royal Shrovetide Because I have a year. “I can’t sleep because I’m excited. It’s so nice to think that all these people still want to come here to see this beautiful game we have in our city.”