The first time I saw the Royal Shrovetide Football match, I thought I'd stumbled into some medieval battlefield reenactment gone terribly wrong. There I was, standing on a muddy bank of the River Henmore in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, watching hundreds of grown men charge through icy water while chasing a single painted ball. The year was 2018, and I'd come to document this bizarre tradition that dates back to the 12th century - though locals will tell you it's much older than that. What struck me most wasn't the chaos itself, but the raw, unfiltered passion these players brought to what essentially amounted to organized mayhem.

I remember clinging to my camera as the "hug" - that's what they call the massive scrum of players - surged toward me. The ball, about the size of a medicine ball but significantly heavier, had been hand-painted by a local artist with the year and special designs. That year's design featured a phoenix rising from flames, which felt oddly appropriate given how this tradition has survived centuries of attempts to suppress it. Oliver Cromwell himself tried to ban it in the 1650s, and yet here we were, still playing in 2018 with roughly 2,000 participants that day, though some years see up to 3,000 players according to local estimates.

What fascinates me about Royal Shrovetide Football isn't just the history, but what it reveals about our need for physical connection in an increasingly digital world. There's something profoundly human about this mass game where the entire town becomes the playing field - goals are three miles apart, and players can use any public path or field, though they're not supposed to break into private buildings. I've seen shopkeepers calmly boarding up their windows while the game rages just feet away, as if this were as normal as Tuesday market day.

This got me thinking about other places where traditional sports are evolving to include everyone. It reminds me of that piece I read about women's football in the Philippines - how the PFF Women's League has given female booters the chance to showcase what they are made of, something that Solar Strikers 'keeper Yasmin Elauria doesn't take for granted. There's a similar spirit here in Ashbourne, though the Royal Shrovetide Football remains predominantly male. Still, I've noticed more women participating in recent years, and the crowd cheering them on has grown noticeably more diverse.

The rules, if you can call them that, are beautifully simple. The game lasts two days, from 2 PM to 10 PM each day, unless someone scores a goal by "goaling" the ball - tapping it three times against one of the mill wheels marking the goals. Scoring is so rare that when it happens, it's like witnessing a miracle. I was lucky enough to see a goal on my second day there in 2018 - a burly farmer named Thomas managed to fight his way through the chaos and tap the ball against the upstream goal at Clifton Mill. The celebration that followed felt like the entire town breathing a collective sigh of relief after hours of struggle.

What I love most about this tradition is how it binds generations. I spoke with a man in his 70s who'd played every year since he was 15, and his grandson was playing for the first time that year. They play for the "up'ards" and "down'ards" - those born north or south of the Hemmore respectively - a division that means you might literally be playing against your next-door neighbor. There's a beautiful madness to it that you just don't find in modern sports.

Some people call it barbaric, and I'll admit I winced when I saw a teenager emerge from the river with a bloody nose. But the community has this incredible system of lookouts and first aid volunteers who materialize exactly when needed. It's chaotic, yes, but it's a organized chaos that has been refined over eight centuries. The hospital reports from last year showed only 12 minor injuries requiring treatment, which seems remarkably low for a game involving thousands of players.

As dusk settled over Ashbourne on that second day, with the game still raging through the streets, I realized I was witnessing something that transcends sport. Royal Shrovetide Football isn't really about football at all - it's about community, history, and the stubborn refusal to let traditions die. In our age of sanitized professional sports and virtual experiences, there's something deeply satisfying about watching people embrace messiness, struggle together in the mud, and celebrate a game where everyone can participate regardless of skill level. It's messy, it's beautiful, and it's thoroughly, wonderfully human.