363 days of the year, you do not expect to read an article about Shrovetide; this is one of those days.
However, this story points out that, for Ashbourne locals, Shrovetide is so much more than a two day event in the year.
2026 saw Up’ards demolish the Down’ards 3-0 over Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday in the town, now we are diving into what makes Royal Ashbourne Shrovetide football a spectacular piece of local history.
Shrovetide football is the longest-standing form of mob football to still exist in the UK, and plenty of tourists visit Ashbourne each year to watch.
On the surface, this game seems like uncontrollable chaos, with little sense of which direction the ball is travelling.
But if you strip it down, it is ‘a local game, for local people’, of which everyone are very proud off.
To understand the game further, Simon Hellaby (Ashbourne local and past goal scorer) spoke to our reporter at the traditional Up’ard pub, The Coach and Horses.
“It is a strange old game that brings the community together.”
He said: “You can be best mates with someone 363 days of the year, and kick the living s**t out of each other for the other two, and at the end of the week you go down the pub and bear no grudges.”
As a 1997 goalscorer, Simon explained: “it was all just a blur…you sleep with the ball the night you score it, and when you wake up in the morning you look at it and think, oh it wasn’t a dream.“
He said: “You spend your life, your childhood and when you are growing up, dreaming about scoring.”
Not everyone can just goal a ball. Once the ball reaches a goal, the official Shrovetide officials call the goalscorer up.
Simon said: “At the time it doesn’t register, and when they called my name and said it was my honour to goal it, I couldn’t even lift my arms up because of holding the ball up my jumper for the last two hours.”
He now takes a slower approach to Shrovetide and keeps an eye on his son Ashton,18, boards up the shops and paints the ball.
Traditionally, one person from each of the opposing teams each hand paint one ball to be turned up on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday each year.
Simon has now been painting the Up’ard ball for 19 years, and consults with the turner upper (the elected local to toss up the ball) to paint a ball that they want, he explained: “within reason it is their choice as to what they want on their ball, although tradition says they should have a Union Jack and a crown on it some have strayed from this over the last few years.”
Simon claimed his favourite ball he has painted was this year’s ball: “I’ve been friends with Andrew for over 15 years, and it’s always more special when you get to paint a ball for someone you know.”
His son, on the other hand, is ready to get involved as a runner during the game.
Ashton said,” he got the sports genes and his sister got the artistic genes,” so maybe one day the Hellabys will not only have another goalscorer in the family but another ball painter as well.
Simon explained: “Although we keep the ball at home, I’ve not seen it for the last 10 years as it’s been in Ashton’s bedroom, never comes out, and that’s why it’s battered and broken.”
He thinks about repainting it as:” It was pristine until he was old enough to start kicking it around the room.”
However, Ashton is hopeful to follow in his dad’s footsteps and goal his own ball one day.
Each year Shrovetide continues to grow its following, even the likes of the army and Sky Sports have found themselves involved in previous years.
Simon explained, “The Mercian battalion came down to Shrovetide on a bus, and they had all given up after half an hour, and had said to us I don’t know how you do it for eight hours a day.”
Ashbourne locals are “born and bred for it”, said Simon, and there is nothing else that compares.
“Forget birthdays, Christmas and New Year’s, Shrovetide is the best day of the year.”
