Villages go to war in annual 'bottle kicking' battle as hundreds turn out for Easter Monday tradition where locals 'fight to move barrels to streams'

Daily Mail​

21-04-2025

Hundreds gathered to watch as two villages battled against each other in a bizarre and violent Easter Monday tradition known as 'bottle kicking'.
The annual sporting contest between neighbouring Leicestershire rivals Hallaton and Medbourne sees participants compete to bring a wooden beer barrel across a boundary stream within their respective village.
The 'bottles' – old wooden field barrels holding about a gallon of beer – are sealed with wax before the annual contest.
Two of the bottles are filled with beer and the third, called the dummy, is made of solid wood and painted red and white.
Preceded by a parade led by the Nene Valley Pipe Band, alongside the ceremonial slicing up and distribution of Hare pie, pictures from the physical game have shown villagers getting muddy in a field as they go head to head for victory.
With local legend suggesting its origins are rooted back 2,000 years ago, the unique Easter Monday event begins with a parade through both villages in which locals carry a large hare pie and three 'bottles'.
The pie is blessed by a Hallaton vicar, before being cut apart and thrown towards onlooking crowds to scramble over the food.
Each barrel is thrown in the air three times to signal the beginning of the game, before residents of each village attempt to get the barrels over their neighbours' stream - around a mile apart.
In the afternoon, the bottle-kicking gets underway with no rules aside from no 'eye-gouging, strangling or use of weapons', while organisers keenly insist they cannot accept any liability for injury.
Participants are advised to take 'extreme caution', and pictures from previous years have shown bloodied villagers as many took to the floor to get their hands on the prestigious barrels.
Each barrel is thrown in the air three times to signal the beginning of the game, before residents of each village attempt to get the barrels over their neighbours' stream - around a mile apart.
Then, scrums regularly break out between villagers as they fight over the barrels.
At the end of the game, which often lasts beyond an hour, residents retire to local pubs.
The winning team celebrates by being lifted onto The Cross and the opened bottle is passed up for players to drink from before being handed around the crowd.
A poster on the event's Facebook page reads: 'The history of the Hallaton Bottle Kicking and Hare Pie Scrambling has links that could well date back over 1,000 years to pagan times.
'The event carries many of the centuries-old customs and practices to this day.'
Speaking to the BBC, from deep inside the field of play, chairman Phil Allan, who joined the event's organising committee in February 1974, age 16, described the event as 'another really exciting one'.
He added: 'Hallaton scored first, then looked like they would do it again quickly. It's been a really good one.'
Alicia Kearns, the Conservative MP for Rutland and Stamford, said bottle kicking was 'an Easter tradition like no other'.
In a post published to social media platform X (formerly Twitter), on Sunday, she said: 'Legend has it that bottle kicking is the game which inspired rugby ... and it's taking place tomorrow in Hallaton.
'The historic annual Hallaton Bottle Kicking is an Easter tradition like no other, as the villages of Hallaton and Medbourne battle it out to get three barrels, known as bottles, from the starting field to their own village by any means possible.'