Traditionally, the Christian festival of Shrovetide was a time to “shrive” or confess your sins, to eat and drink your fill before the abstinence of Lent, and to have a bit of fun. Left over bits of meat were polished off on Collop Monday, and dairy and eggs devoured on Shrove Tuesday often in the form of pancakes. As part of the fun, the normal rules of behaviour would be suspended, and in some places the roles of master and servant were reversed. At Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, for example, the monks prepared a feast for over 100 estate workers, who they waited on hand and foot, providing each servant with pancakes and a gallon of beer each!
In most towns, apprentices would be awarded a half day holiday on Shrove Tuesday and often used this time to indulge in “sports” such as bull-baiting, cock fighting and goose squailing – this involved tying a goose to a pole and throwing weighted sticks at the unfortunate bird. One of the games that was played was football, but the game of mass football played at holiday times, such as Shrovetide, was very different from the game we know today. Although there were two sides, there was no limit to the numbers of people playing. The goals – usually a post, waterwheel or other landmark – were often at opposite ends of a town, and players could handle, hold or kick the ball as they saw fit. Of course, the lack of rules, the passions of the opposing sides and the ready supply of drink, often led to wild behaviour which was not welcomed by those responsible for law and order.
In 1314, a proclamation on behalf of Edward II sought to ban football in the City of London due to the “many evils which may perchance arise”. In 1533, the Mayor of Chester banned Shrove Tuesday football, which “alwayes tyme out of man’s remembrance” had started at the cross known as the Rood Dee. In 1608, Manchester banned football following “greate disorder in our towne” which resulted in many broken windows. Over the next two centuries, Shrovetide football was banned in town after town, until by 1800 Derby was the largest town still retaining its traditional game.
Eyewitness reports of the Derby game describe how a contest, often lasting for seven to eight hours and involving up to 600 players, would smash through wall and fence, plunge into freezing rivers, and crawl through sewers, in the effort to score the single winning goal. For working people, the game was the main event of the Derby year and attracted players from nearby villages and spectators from other counties. Unsurprisingly, the game gained national notoriety for the intense rivalry between the two sides: the Peterites and the All Saints. The historian William Hutton professed that whilst he had witnessed the game in other towns, in Derby it was pursued “with an avidity I have not observed elsewhere” and claimed that “the very infant learns to kick and then walk”.
The first attempt to ban the Derby game is reflected in the town’s accounts for 1731 which note the money spent on special constables to “quelle ye riot” that resulted. A ban in 1746 was ignored and a ban in 1797 was foiled by a nutseller called Old Mother Hope who smuggled the ball into the market place underneath her skirts. The people of Derby saw off two further attempts to suppress their beloved game, until in 1846 the Home Secretary authorised the use of military force. This took the shape of two troops of mounted dragoon guards, which supplemented Derby’s new police force and 500 special constables.
On the eve of Shrove Tuesday, leading footballers met with the mayor, William Mousley, and surrendered the ball. Hopes were high that an altercation could be avoided. But local passions were too strong, and shortly after two o’clock a ball was thrown up in one of Derby’s streets. The police wrestled for control of the ball and then slashed it with a knife. Some special constables were attacked and the police withdrew to the Guildhall. Another ball was thrown up and when police returned to the fray they were overwhelmed by the mob. Mayor Mousley and his magistrates cantered up to the scene, but were greeted with a hail of missiles, a brickbat bouncing off the Mayor’s shoulder.
Mousley had one option left and he used it. He read the Riot Act. This gave the crowd one hour to disperse and allowed him to ask the dragoon guards to clear the area. The footballers reacted swiftly, heading out into open country near the River Derwent. They were followed by the dragoons, their horses leaping over the hedges as if on a fox hunt. A wild afternoon ensued and the game continued into darkness. In the following days, 14 men appeared before Mayor and magistrates and five were indicted for inciting a riot under the pretence of playing football.
The five men appeared a few weeks later at the County Assizes. Here, the Judge took account of the Council’s request for leniency and let the would-be footballers off with suspended fines. At a time, when stealing a few turnips could result in several months hard labour, this was a remarkable outcome for men who had defied 500 special constables and two troops of dragoon guards for several hours. But there were good reasons why the Council had requested leniency. One reason was that local magnate Joseph Strutt, recently deceased and twice Mayor of Derby, had been an ardent supporter of the Shrovetide game and his beloved Peterites.
The demise of the game in Derby extinguished the great showpiece event of Victorian Shrovetide football. However, it did not stamp out the game altogether. Just 13 miles up the road from Derby, Shrovetide Football still takes place at Ashbourne and enjoys Royal approval. This marvellous game, played between the Up’Ards from the north of the Henmore Brook, and the Down’Ards from the south, bears many similarities with the game as once played in Derby. (Indeed, it may even have started in response to the proposed banning of the Derby game in 1797). Atherstone in Warwickshire has a Shrovetide game with very different rules. It is confined to the aptly named Long Street and typically ends in scenes of intense turmoil. A gentler affair closer to modern-day football takes place at Alnwick in Northumberland, albeit with goalposts or “hales” draped in foliage and a very large pitch sporting molehills and puddles.
Ironically, the riotous events of 1846 only served to make the Derby game even more notorious. Charles Alcock was the pre-eminent footballer of the Victorian period, inventor of internationals and the FA Cup. In 1874, he published a book called Football: Our Winter Game, which would have been required reading for any aspiring football journalist. It devoted eight pages to the intense rivalry exhibited by Shrovetide football as played at Derby. No wonder then, that subsequently newspapers started using the term “a derby game” to describe football matches between local rivals. So, the next time you start flipping pancakes, spare a thought for those crazy men and women who, for over a hundred years, defied all odds to play the game they loved.
Ian Collis is the author of The Derby Game: A History of Local Rivalries (Pitch Publishing).
Published: 4th March 2025.
