Lament of the Shin Kickers - by Cristina Roe

This is a ripping yarn of an actual historical event, The Cotswold Olympic Games, which still takes place in a milder and smaller format to this day.  I was inspired to write this while going through a coffee table book on the Cotswolds near where I used to live and just couldn't stop laughing!   

T’was back in 1851
Dover’s Hill I do recall
We ventured forth from Birmingham
There was plenty of sport for all

They called us yobs and hooligans
Vulgar, foul mouthed and rowdy
Invading gangs of lowlife scum
Making the games too crowdy

Them old Cotswold Olympik Games
Of Whitsun week the crown
Since 1612 held on Dover’s Hill
O’er Chipping Campden Town

Us lads from the industrial towns
Proved to be quite a match
For village boys, those inbred bores
With mops of unruly thatch

Of all the highlights the event
That inspired the greatest passion
Must have been the shin kicking
Carried out in brutal fashion

Contestants practiced many a month
With hammers and planks for training
Their shins like washboards soon became
Their wounds caused no complaining

The village teams fought to the death
Chipping Campden, Broadway,
Ilmington, Ebrington, Willersey too,
Excitement mounting by the day


But we were tough from real work
With muscles taught as leather
Our boots with Sheffield steel were made
Our brains book learned and clever

The cockfights and bull baiting were
To them an easy pastime   
At hunting they did rather well
The shin kicking loss was a crime

Those oiks raised in fields of manure
Proved far too slow in contest
They screamed as their defeat came clear
They raised their fists in protest

It was not very hard to spot
Their murderous intention
The prize giving we thought we’d skip
T’was wise to hang convention

As we ploughed into that mayhem
A crowd of thirty thousand
The jeers of hatred rang around
And soon things got out of hand

We scrapped and fought and teased and shot
We fairly put the boot in
There was no contest, Midlands won
Of that there’s no disputing

The rioting that followed on
Set unleashed man against man
Resulting in a frenzied throng
And a century long ban


At last in 1951
The games were resurrected
The chess and skittles were allowed
But cruel sports were ousted

Now that shin kicking is no more
All spirits are deflated
The games are frankly quite a bore
PC is overrated

Cristina Roe ©