At Mardi Gras, the Brazilians have carnival and the English have the Atherstone Ball.
This Tuesday, the 823e Atherstone Ball was held in the Warwickshire, a county in central England. This game is a tradition over 800 years old. The game takes place on the main street, businesses are barricaded for the occasion, and children are allowed to leave school earlier in the day. The last half hour of the game saw one of the two teams storming a store in which the famous ball was hidden.
Brutal end to Atherstone Ball Game 2023. The last half an hour of the Pancake Day tradition saw punches thrown & a betting shop damaged as teams battled to gain control of an oversized ball. pic.twitter.com/LPMtAUaA1f
— Urban Pictures (@Urban_Pictures) February 21, 2023
These images are those of an endgame of medieval football, the most violent ball sport in the world. The rules are very simple: two teams of often well-muscled and always very alcoholic fellows compete for two hours with the sole objective of possessing, at the end of the allotted time, the ball as big as five soccer balls. Donuts, strangulation, shirt pulling, throat tackle, all shots are allowed. Only three prohibitions govern the Atherstone Ball game : do not leave the playing space, do not hide the ball for too long and do not kill opponents. Here, it was the team defending the store that won, preventing opponents from entering the enclosure to regain control.
A retention of the ball that would make the great Barça of Pep Guardiola blush.
