Striking photos of the Royal Shrovetide football match

Ash­bourne is a small, pic­turesque mar­ket town on the edge of the Peak dis­trict. Home to just under 10,000 peo­ple, the town – which is equidis­tant between Der­by and Stoke-on-Trent – was hailed as the best place to raise a fam­i­ly by prop­er­ty experts in 2018. Good schools, low crime rates, his­to­ry and access to nature helped it snatch the crown, but under­neath hides a dark­er, more rau­cous side.

Once a year, its bucol­ic streets descend into chaos as the Roy­al Shrove­tide foot­ball match over­takes the town. Played annu­al­ly on Shrove Tues­day and Ash Wednes­day for at least four cen­turies the game of ​“medieval foot­ball” is thought to be one of the world’s old­est (though offi­cial records of its gen­e­sis were destroyed in a fire at the Roy­al Shrove­tide Com­mit­tee office in the 1890s).

The match con­sists of two teams – the up’ards and the down’ards (hail­ing from either side of the Hen­more Brook that cuts through the town) – com­pet­ing to put a ball in the oth­er’s goal. The goals are three miles apart, on either side of the town, and there are few rules, beyond the pro­hi­bi­tion of trans­port­ing the ball in a car, hid­ing it under coats and murder/​manslaughter. That the lat­ter has to be specif­i­cal­ly ruled out gives you an idea of the nature, tone and tim­bre of play.

The game is played in two eight hour ses­sions over the two days and sees com­peti­tors ram­bunc­tious­ly jos­tle for con­trol of the ball through streets, streams and squares. Shops across the town are board­ed up as hun­dreds swirl and clam­our one anoth­er. This year pho­tog­ra­ph­er Chris Bethell was in the mid­dle of the fray as the up’ards scored a 2 – 0 vic­to­ry. Here is some of the chaos he captured.

Fol­low Chris on Instagram.

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