Need an outlet for your Easter sugar rush? Then join in the peculiar annual melee that is bottle kicking in Hallaton and Medbourne.
Easter Monday sees these two Leicestershire villages compete in the ancient tradition, in which residents and all comers flounder, elbow and kick their way through muddy fields to wrestle over three small beer kegs, or ‘bottles’.
The object is to get the bottles across two streams, one in each village. Two of the kegs contain beer and the third, known as ‘the dummy’, is solid wood. The first village to get two bottles safely over their stream wins.
But if it sounds like a gentle spot of village rivalry, beware! The contest regularly sees participants whisked off to the nearest hospital with broken bones.
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