BARK!: March 2011

Yes this is a sport; -
The Cotswold Olimpick Games – a strange British tradition dating back many centuries - plays host to the bizarre sport of Shin Kicking. Contestants stuff the legs of their pants with straw and proceed to lock their arms with each other’s shoulders and kick the living daylights out of their opponents' shins. The competition is essentially a brutal endurance test, with the final game played out by whichever two bloodied, beaten and probably slightly drunk men manage to get that far. Each competitor wears the traditional white smocks of Cotswold shepherds, although it has been alluded to in historical texts that in days of yore shin kickers fought in the nude (suffice to say, there seems to have been no attempted revival of a nudist Shin Kicking tournament to date). The game dates back to 17th century England, where it was a pastime for the rural working communities of the West Country every year. By the time the English Civil War had ended in 1651, the puritan Oliver Cromwell had had the game banned, and it was not to reappear until the 19th century.