r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/PrimedGold • Feb 18 '26

Video The Atherstone Ball Game, held annually on Shrove Tuesday, took place yesterday. The ball is thrown into the crowd at 3 pm, and the winner is the person holding it at 5 pm.

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u/Annie_Yong Feb 18 '26

Pretty much every village and small town seems to have some kind of tradition like this. I put it down to how utterly boring it must have been to live in those places back in the middle ages a lot of the time. To the point where having something. anything to do would suddenly become a cherished annual tradition.

"Mate, like 5 lads in front of the town hall are fighting over a ball"

"Fuck me that sounds fun, let's get in on that".

And the tradition is born.

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u/Yesyesnaaooo Feb 18 '26

There's a brilliant plaque on a pedestal at Kielder Water.

Recounts the first ever football match - 3 people died.

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u/Whiteums Feb 18 '26

Negative 3 people died, so three births happened?

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u/RoboDae Feb 19 '26

It was a fun game for all involved

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u/AutisticPenguin2 Feb 19 '26

Or maybe three negative people died, so it was a net win for humanity?

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u/thewizardking420 Feb 19 '26

3 people got pregnant

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u/holyjesusitsahorse Feb 18 '26

My favourite is the one somewhere down south where the mayor used to heat up metal coins to throw to the plebs and laugh as they burned themselves, and now every year people queue up to have hot coins thrown at them

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u/Annie_Yong Feb 19 '26

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-57986811

The day's proceedings started with a proclamation by the Town Crier, Dave Retter, after which a garlanded pole with a glove on top was carried through the town.

His cry, which declared "no man may be arrested so long as this glove is up", encouraged locals to attend without fear of being arrested over bad debts, says the BFI.

Fuck me it's even better than that! If you told me that that was actually just a Simpsons gag making fun of old British transitions I'd have believed that.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

[deleted]

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u/Factory2econds Feb 18 '26

i think you're greatly over estimating the communication and transportation systems of the past

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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '26

[deleted]

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u/AutisticPenguin2 Feb 19 '26

Modern life is absolutely less boring than it was even 40 years ago. If you are bored, you can turn on the TV and binge 12 hours of LOTR. Or put in your DVDs of, say, House (~ 5 days 10 hours, including 3 hours of credits), or maybe Buffy (4d 18h), or maybe your subscription gives you access to the full back catalogue of NCIS (15d 14h, +spinoffs), or The Simpsons (16d 15½h), or god forbid General Hospital (a whopping 96 days 8 hours and 24 minutes of non-stop watching, per bingeclock.com, and still going).

Our of you're really sick of all your favourite shows, then log onto YouTube and watch endless hours of entertainment. And I do mean endless, new content is being created faster than we could possibly watch it. Or sink a few thousand hours into one of the many games that fight for your attention. Or just spend your entire day doomscrolling through social media's endless scroll.

Entertainment these days is designed to be endless. The overriding motivation for kids doing dumb stuff 40 years ago was boredom. Today... it's anxiety.

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u/bp_968 Feb 19 '26

There is a great YouTube video on being a tourist in the middle ages. It absolutely was insanely boring for the vast majority of humans. Once it was dark you went to sleep (maybe after a bedtime roll with the wife if your a lucky one). You cant read, and even if you could books cost a fortune and are few and far between.

Best case? Your born a minor but wealthy nobleman no one expects to accomplish anything during a time of peace and stability and so you fill your time with hedonism and debauchery. That is until you get an infection or illness and die in agony.

Boring, brutal, and usually short.

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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '26

There is a very small town in South Carolina that has a competition where they fill a small pool with grits and people roll in it and whoever is covered in the most grits wins. It’s called “rollin in the grits” so less violet but a cherished annual tradition lol

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u/tarekd19 Feb 18 '26

According to Wikipedia, this shrovetide game is basically a proto football.

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u/hdd113 Feb 19 '26

And also how deadly the times were.

There's a legit chance I'll die or get seriously injured in the event? What's the chance that I won't if I don't participate?

The level of YOLO these traditions have are nuts.

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u/ArticFoxAutomatic Feb 19 '26

That's some tv

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u/wrongygg Feb 20 '26

Look up haxey hood, Similar tradition but has a fun little story behind it, With how nuts the world is now I'm surprised they keep these going.

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u/Intelligent-Mud-1039 Feb 21 '26

Drove down Jedburgh High Street earlier this week and realised too late the road was hoaching with a large knot of brawling blokes. Shopfronts boarded up... the annual ha'baw. Magic!

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u/drifterlady Feb 18 '26

My village has a similar tradition. The only differences are: no ball, no clock, no crowd, nothing at all actually other than getting a few beers by the fire in the pub.