Results

Date	Winners		Runners-Up
2015	St. Michael’s	2	St. Paul’s	0

Report

A Football game between the parishes of St. Paul and St. Michael (North and South) in Alnwick, Northumberland, have gone head-to-head on Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day) since 1762. The ball is thrown into the river Aln by the Duke of Northumberland and the two teams (who can field as many playersfrom their own parish as they can muster) try to become the first to score two “Hales”.

The pitch becomes very muddy thanksto the river and there is no size limit to it. The parish of St. Michael won in 2015 with two hales to nil, scored by self-employed Lee Pattisson, 33, and 15-year old Duchess’s Community High School pupil Ronnie Coxford.

Websites

[1] Chronicle (2015) Alnwick hosted the annual Shrove Tuesday ‘football match’ where North and South battled [Internet] Availble from: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/alnwick-hosted-annual-shrove-tuesday-8666520 [Accessed 25 October 2018]

[2] BBC (2015) Hundreds gather for Alnwick Shrovetide game [Internet] Available from: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-31510154 [Accessed 25 October 2015]

[3] BBC (2016) Bruising encounter at historic Alnwick ball game [Internet] Available from: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-tyne-35535189/bruising-encounter-at-historic-alnwick-ball-game [Accessed 25 October 2015]

Images

[4] BBC (2015) There are few rulesto the gameand teams do not wear matching strips [Internet] Available from: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/media/images/81066000/jpg/_81066643_81066642.jpg [Accessed 25 October 2015]

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Richard Mulcahy and Derek Walsh.

About this document

Researched, compiled and written by Enda Mulcahy for the

Eirball | Irish North American and World Sports Archive

Last Updated: 9 September 2020

(c) Copyright Enda Mulcahy and Eirball 2020

You are free to copy this document in whole or part provided that proper acknowledgement is given to the authors. All Rights Reserved.