ASHBOURNE, England (AP) — This ancient form of soccer has a rule forbidding players not to murder each other.

Every year, thousands of people descend on a small town in the English countryside to watch a two-day game of mass street football that, to the casual observer, could easily be mistaken for a riot.

This is Royal Shrovetide — a centuries-old ball game played in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, that, frankly, looks nothing like the world’s most popular sport.

Or any other game for that matter.

“It’s like tug of war without the rope,” says Natalie Wakefield, 43, who lives locally and has marshaled the event in the past. “It’s mad in the best possible way.”

Hundreds of players

Played between two teams of hundreds of players, the aim is to “goal” at either end of a three-mile (five-kilometer) sector that could take the match through rivers, hedgerows, high streets and just about anything or anywhere except for churchyards, cemeteries and places of worship.

The ball is thrown into a crowd that moves like a giant herd, as each team tries to carry it toward their desired goal. Rules are limited but “no murder” was an early stipulation for the game that dates back to at least the 1600s.

Good players need to be “hard, aggressive and authoritative,” says Mark Harrison, who “goaled” in 1986 and is one of multiple generations of scorers in his family.

“You can’t practice,” the 62-year-old Harrison adds. He stopped competing seven years ago and now serves up burgers to throngs of spectators from a street food truck.

“You’ve just got to get in there and be rough. I am a rugby player … I’m also an ex-boxer so that helps.”

Royal approval

Harrison had the honor of carrying the then-Prince Charles on his shoulder when in 2003 the now-King of England opened that year’s game.

“He loved it!” Harrison says.

Played over Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday each year, the event is a source of immense pride for the people of Ashbourne in Derbyshire’s Peak District.

Yet, such a unifying tradition is actually based upon splitting the town into two halves between the “Up’ards” and the “Down’ards,” determined by whether players are born on the north or south of the River Henmore.

Don’t park there

On any other days, Ashbourne, around a three-hour drive from London, is quiet and picturesque with a high street lined by antique shops, cafes and pubs. Visitors include hikers, cyclists and campers.

For two days that all changes.

Large timber boardings are nailed up to protect shop fronts. Doorways are barricaded.

“Play Zone” signs are strapped to lampposts, warning motorists not to park there for fear of damage to vehicles, which can be shoved out of the way by the force of the hoards of players trying to move the ball.

In contrast, colorful bunting is strewn high above from building to building and revelers congregate, eating and drinking as if it is a street party. Parents with babies in strollers watch on from a safe distance. School holidays in the area have long since been moved to coincide with the festival.

“There are people who come and they have a drink and they’re just like, ‘This is a bit of a crazy thing and it’s a spectacle, and now I’ve seen it, box ticked off,’” says Wakefield, who also used to report on Royal Shrovetide for the local newspaper. “And there are people who are absolutely enthralled by it all, and they get the beauty and complexity of the game of it and those people follow it year on year.”

Where’s the ball?

Play begins with an opening ceremony in a car park, no less, in the center of town. The national anthem and “Auld Lang Syne” are sung. Competitors are reminded, “You play the game at your own risk.”

A leather ball, the size of a large pumpkin, filled with cork and ornately painted, is thrown into what is called a “hug” of players.

And they’re off.

As a spectator sport, it can be confusing. There can be little to see for long periods during the eight hours of play each day from 2 p.m. local time. Players wear their own clothes — such as random soccer or rugby jerseys — rather than matching uniforms.

On Tuesday, it took more than 45 minutes to move the ball out of the car park.

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Onlookers stand on bins, walls and park benches, craning their necks to look down alleyways to try to get a better view.

“Can you see the ball?” someone will ask. The answer is often “No.”

One person thinks it might be in line with a tree over to the right of the car park, but can’t be sure.

Later that day there had been no sight of the ball for almost two hours until rumors started to circulate that the Down’ards scored what turned out to be the only goal over the two days of play for a 1-0 victory.

Deception and cunning

With so many players, the hug can be difficult to maneuver but gathers pace quickly, prompting crowds of spectators who’d previously been trying to get a closer look to suddenly run away from the action.

The ball can be handled and kicked. Play can be frantic, with players racing after a loose ball wherever it may take them, diving into the river and up and out the other side. While strength is needed in the hug, speed is required from runners if the ball breaks free.

Royal Shrovetide, however, can be as much about deception and cunning as speed and strength, it seems.

“There’s a bit of strategy involved in that somebody’s pretending they’ve still got the ball in the middle of the hug,” Wakefield says. “And they’re quietly passing it back out to the edge to get it to a runner who has to sneak away in a kind of, I imagine, very nonchalant manner and then leg it down an alleyway.”

A famous goal in 2019 came as a result of the hug not realizing it didn’t have the ball until it was too late. Hidden by two schoolboys standing meters away, the ball was passed to a player who ran, largely unimpeded, for 1 1/2 miles (2 1/2 kilometers) before scoring.

A ball is goaled when it is hit three times against one of the millstones at either end of the town in Clifton or Sturston.

The beautiful game

Scorers have likened the achievement to winning Olympic gold. They are carried on shoulders, paraded through the town and celebrated like heroes.

“If you can imagine playing for Manchester United in their heyday and they’re at Wembley in a cup final. You score the winner. You’re there,” Harrison says.

Scorers also get to keep the balls, which are repainted and become treasured family possessions.

It is the game, however, that is treasured most of all.

“I just live and breathe it,” says Janet Richardson, 75, from Ashbourne, who has been going to Royal Shrovetide since she was a 1-year-old. “I can’t sleep because I’m excited. It’s so lovely to think that all these people still want to come here and watch this beautiful game that we’ve got in our town.”

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James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer