{"id":771881,"date":"2026-02-18T05:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/771881\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T05:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:04:16","slug":"joint-winners-of-atherstone-ball-game-announced-after-brutal-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/771881\/","title":{"rendered":"Joint winners of Atherstone Ball Game announced after brutal opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

It follows a two-hour battle to be the last ones in possession of a specially made leather ball in the north Warwickshire townAtherstone Ball Game begins<\/p>\n

The joint winners of the Atherstone Ball Game has been announced after a brutal opening.<\/p>\n

They have been named as James Bernard and Kieran Marshal.<\/p>\n

It follows a two-hour battle to be the last ones in possession of a specially made leather ball in the north Warwickshire<\/a> town after it is thrown and kicked along Long Street.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Watch Atherstone Ball Game underway as match turns brutal immediately<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Secret to getting the best of BirminghamLive’s stories<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Teens arrested after Oldbury assault as police make plea over ‘distressing’ social media video<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This was the 826th Ball Game and it is held every year on Shrove Tuesday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Players take part in the 826th Atherstone Ball Game in Atherstone(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

It is not the first time that there has been more than one winner<\/p>\n

Three years ago Scott Wright, Lewis Cooper, and Kieran Marshall were all named victors of the competition.<\/p>\n

Fracas were witnessed within seconds of the start of the 2026 game at 3pm. It concluded at 5pm.<\/p>\n

Atherstone shuts down to accommodate the unique day.<\/p>\n

Shops and businesses were also seen boarding up windows to avoid any damage.<\/p>\n

The Atherstone Ball Game is held each year to honour a game of medieval football held between Leicestershire and Warwickshire<\/a> in 1199.<\/p>\n

The two teams used a bag of gold as a ball, with Warwickshire emerging victorious on that occasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It follows a two-hour battle to be the last ones in possession of a specially made leather ball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15,9733],"class_list":{"0":"post-771881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-warwickshire"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116089891579220847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}