No Rules, Only Goals

Some reflections on the origins of football and the tactics of Tяump

Today, observant Christians enter Shrovetide, three days of preparation for the 40 day fasting period of Lent. The final day, Shrove Tuesday, has traditionally been a day of revelry and excess. In some places it is celebrated as Mardi Gras - Fat Tuesday - a exuberant carnival of colourful behaviour. In secular Britain all that survives is the custom on making pancakes, the symbolic using up of the last ingredients in the pantry after all the good stuff has been eaten.

However, there is one place in England where Shrove Tuesday is marked with as much dedication as any Mardi Gras carnival krewe. As they do in New Orleans, the participants spend months preparing for the event and a good showing on the day brings honour to the community that lasts all year long. Ashbourne, a town of some 8,000 people nestled in the Derbyshire Dales is the venue for football match which has been staged there on Shrove Tuesday since the English Civil War, and probably before.

And when I say the town is the venue, I mean it literally. This game is played in the streets, the surrounding fields and in the River Henmore, which divides the town. The two competing teams consist of the Up’Ards, those born north of the Henmore, and the Down’Ards, those born to the south. Where once two mills stood on the river, their millstones are now embedded into purpose-built structures. These are three miles apart and act as the goals. There is no limit to the number of people who may participate.

Despite the fact that the weather can be dreadful, the Ashbourne game draws thousands of spectators. While kicking, carrying and throwing are allowed, most of the time the ball is invisible to participants and spectators alike, lost in a massive scrum that can contain over a hundred players, all trying to push what they call ‘the hug’ in the direction of their team’s goal.

Sometimes called mob football, versions of the Shrovetide game were prevalent across medieval Europe, first being referred to in England in a manuscript written around 1180. King Edward II passed a law banning the game in 1314, as did later monarchs. It was a game played by young apprentices and often got out of hand.

That spirit is very much alive in Ashbourne, where, in 1960, the hug passed through the local branch of Woolworths, completely trashing the shop. Today the game survives in a handful of English towns and villages in various forms. The principle that unites them can be summed up in the phrase ‘no rules, only goals’.

From what we’ve seen of the first month of the Tяump administration, it would seem they too are driven by the binding ethos of Shrovetide football. The rules of good governance have been trashed like that unfortunate branch of Woolworths in an all-out attempt to achieve their goals. Tяump’s guiding philosophy is also lifted from mob football: might is right.

For thousands of years, that notion was the bedrock of all politics, whether tribal or imperial. Democracy developed to counter such brutality, protecting the meek from the mighty by gradually giving everyone a say in the direction of society. It is a relatively modern process, dating from the 19th century, but the adoption of laws has been successful in emancipating women, people of colour and the LGBT community from legislative discrimination.

This parallels the evolution of mob football, which also underwent significant change in the 19th century. Educational establishments, looking for team games for their students to play, began to codify the Shrovetide game. The adoption of universally agreed laws led directly to the development of the great spectator sports we know today: rugby, soccer, Gaelic football, Aussie rules, gridiron and others.

As they progressed, both democracy and ball games sought to make things fairer, for instance, by adopting inclusive civil rights legislation in the former case, or by introducing the offside rule in the latter. Some however found the constant progression towards greater fairness irksome. VAR is the cause of much complaint (unless it finds in your team’s favour), but with so much money slushing around, in both politics and ball games, most accept the need for measures to ensure the playing field is kept level.

Not so Doиald Tяump. He rejects the rules of any game. If it is physically possible for him to stand by the opposition goal while all the players are in the other half of the pitch, he’s going to do it. Why not? What is to physically restrain him from walking there and waiting for the ball? If the referee calls him offside, so what? He’s brought his own referee and he says Tяump is not offside. If his team backs him up and his supporters threaten violence if he is cautioned, what is the opposition to do?

This is the conundrum currently facing the Democratic Party, the free press, the American people and their constitution. Can a player unilaterally change the laws of the game? Is Ronaldo so brilliant that he can play by his own rules?

Because right now, Tяump is playing a different game, one that harks back to the spirit of mob football, a game where might is right and any tactics are justified in the pursuit of the ultimate goal, which is nothing more than the right to taunt those people who live on the other side of the river.

(If you have half an hour, this is a brilliant film about Shrovetide football in Ashbourne, which, contrary to my use of it as a simile for Tяump’s behaviour, is in no way MAGA, right-wing or reactionary)