Bottle-kicking: the violent, beer-driven British tradition that draws thousands every year
Bottle-kicking: it's not an official sport, it has virtually no rules, but it's a British tradition dating back thousands of years. Held each Easter Monday in the village of Hallaton, England, bottle-kicking draws hundreds of participants, each scrambling to move one of three casks of ale across a checkpoint... by any means possible. (However, you might be relieved to know...
Bottle-kicking: it's not an official sport, it has virtually no rules, but it's a British tradition dating back thousands of years. Held each Easter Monday in the village of Hallaton, England, bottle-kicking draws hundreds of participants, each scrambling to move one of three casks of ale across a checkpoint... by any means possible. (However, you might be relieved to know there are rules: no eye-gouging, strangling or weapons are allowed.)
"The crowd that came to the village yesterday was about 7,000 people," Phil Allan, Hallaton's bottle-kicking contest chairman, told Carol. "The number of contestants that actually take part are probably anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000."
Here is how the game played out last year in Hallaton:
Players throw hare pie into the crowd before the bottle-kicking game (Photo: Darren Staples/Reuters)
Players hold aloft the bottles before the start of the bottle-kicking game (Photo: Darren Staples/Reuters)
Players fight for the bottle during the bottle-kicking game (Photo: Darren Staples/Reuters)