Hallaton Bottle Kicking 2nd April 2018

This is ridiculous. I m a middleaged man in glasses crawling through a hawthorn hedge with barbed wire both sides, in a very muddy field near Hallaton. I m trying to keep up with an epic, rampaging Hallaton Bottle Kicking game which had everything the longest end anyone could remember, the shortest one ever and a woman getting stuck in with an umbrella. The ancient, traditional event roughhouse, 50aside rugby without rules takes place in Harborough fields every Easter Monday, between the competing villages of Hallaton and Medbourne. This year Hallaton won 20, but the scoreline is much simpler than the story of the match. The game started us usual, just after 3pm on the crest of a hill near Hallaton, after a day of events including a church service, the traditional distribution of hare pie and the Bottle Kicking parade. There was also a minute s silence for three Bottle Kicking stalwarts who have died in the last year Peter Daisley, Bob Collier and David (Wacka) Wainwright. But niceties were forgot