Atherstone Ball Game 2008

Atherstone Ball Game 2008

Just a quick Good Luck to those from Atherstone that are taking part in this years 800 year old tradition of the Atherstone Ball Game. If you don't know what the ball game is about, it's simple. During the morning of Shrove Tuesday all shops in the town are boarded up (making it look like a Hurricane evacuation scene) and schools are closed, then at 3pm a ball is chucked out of a window and must be passed from one end of the town to the other, until the claxon gets set off. The fun then begins when all hell breaks loose and it's every man for himself, as for an hour or so, people fight over the ball - climbing up lampposts and shop roofs to jump on top of the crowd to get their chance of getting the ball. At 5pm the claxon is then let off one more time and whoever is holding the ball wins the game and retreats to their favour ground - usually the pub - to claim their prize of Ł1,000.

Atherstone Ball Game 2007

The Winners:

» Atherstone Ball Game
» Atherstone Ball Game 2007 (Where pics above came from)

Comments:

5th Feb 2008 21:38

Brilliant, I love tradition, things like this are great. Saw a lot of this type of thing with the "Robbie Coltrane" around Britain thing he done on ITV, cool.

How's Kirsty with the pregnancy? Not able to log-in and ask her myself because this stupid forum will NOT email me my password, grrrr. Anyway, hope all is well with you both, take care.