The Sedgefield Ball Game is a mob football game played every Shrove Tuesday across the town of Sedgefield in County Durham, England.
According to tradition, the parish clerk is obliged to furnish a football on Shrove Tuesday, which he throws into the market place, where it is contested for by the mechanics against the agriculturists of the town and neighbourhood. More recently, however, it is a secret group of local residents who organise the game, provide the ball and choose who will start the game off. WHELLAN, F. (1894) History Topography, and Directory of the County Palatine of Durham. Second Edition. Great Britain: Hanson & Co.
At 1.00 p.m, the game's leather ball is passed three times through a bull ring in the centre of the village. The object of the game used to be to "ally" the ball at two goals at either end of the village. However the ball can not be allied until 4.00 p.m.. due to the expansion of the village it now has only one "ally", which has been slightly moved from its original setting.[ citation needed ] The ally is a beck at the south of the village. Until 4pm the ball is played around the surrounding villages, and it is a great privilege to get even a kick, as it can get quite physical. The first person to get the ball to any of the local pubs by tradition receives a free drink.[ citation needed ]
Once the ball has been allied it must be returned to the bull ring in the centre of the village and passed through it three times. The whole task is quite difficult as this is an individual and not a team game. [ citation needed ]
A plaque displaying winners can be found in The Golden Lion pub.
Year | Winner | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | L. Archer | ||||||
2011 | J. Saunders Jnr | ||||||
2012 | Martin Lower [1] | ||||||
2013 | Stephen Flockett [2] | ||||||
2014 | Joe-Louis Fanelli [3] | ||||||
2015 | James Archer [4] | ||||||
2016 | Daz Clemmet [5] | ||||||
2017 | Thomas Adcock [6] | ||||||
2018 | Joe Saunders [7] | ||||||
2019 | Michael Adcock [8] | ||||||
2020 | Paul Johnson [9] | ||||||
2022 | Adam Dovaston [10] | ||||||
2023 | Daniel Archer | – | 2024 | Harrison Lower |
The game was cancelled in 2021 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Mardi Gras is the final day of Carnival ; it thus falls on the day before the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is French for "Fat Tuesday", reflecting the practice of the last night of consuming rich, fatty foods in preparation for the Christian fasting season of Lent, during which the consumption of such foods is avoided.
Carnival or Shrovetide is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras.
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Chester-le-Street is a market town in the County Durham district, in the ceremonial county of Durham, England. It is located around 6 miles north of Durham and is also close to Newcastle upon Tyne. The town holds markets on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. In 2021, it had a population of 23,555.
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Scoring the Hales is the name of a large scale shrovetide football match played yearly in the English market town of Alnwick, Northumberland. Once a street contest, it has now moved to a field named The Pastures across the River Aln from Alnwick Castle.
Medieval football is a modern term used for a wide variety of the localised informal football games which were invented and played in England during the Middle Ages. Alternative names include folk football, mob football and Shrovetide football. These games may be regarded as the ancestors of modern codes of football, and by comparison with later forms of football, the medieval matches were chaotic and had few rules.
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The Atherstone Ball Game is a "medieval football" game played annually on Shrove Tuesday in the English town of Atherstone, Warwickshire. The game honours a match played between Leicestershire and Warwickshire in 1199, when teams competed for a bag of gold, and which was won by Warwickshire. At one time similar events were held in many towns throughout England, but Atherstone's is now one of at least three such games that are still played each year at Shrovetide, the others being the Royal Shrovetide Football match held in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, and The Alnwick Shrovetide Football Match in Alnwick, Northumberland.
County Durham is a local government district in the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It is governed by Durham County Council, a unitary authority. The district has an area of 2,226 square kilometres (859 sq mi), and contains 135 civil parishes. It forms part of the larger ceremonial county of Durham, together with boroughs of Darlington, Hartlepool, and the part of Stockton-on-Tees north of the River Tees.
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