The Alnwick Ball Game

The Alnwick Ball Game (Scoring the Hales), Northumberland, Shrove Tuesday 8 March 2011 on a very windy and cold day. First recorded in 1762 but probably existed before that, then moved from the town to the pastures below the castle in 1827. The ball is thrown into the crowd from the Barbican at the castle and processed down the hill to the pastures for the football. The game is between the local parishes of St Pauls and St Margarets, and the first to get 2 goals (hales) wins, changing ends after each goal or after a half an hour of no score. Finally the ball is carried to the river and thrown in (not shown on this video). The first player to recover it gets to keep the ball.