Ramble, rant or reminisce, this is an artist’s opportunity to pen their own Clash article.
This issue, The Maccabees’ Felix White praises eccentric British sporting traditions…
“On tour you tend to find yourselves animated and passionately discussing some of the most pointless and meaningless things, most of the time in a sub-conscious collective will to kill time. Last year, on our album tour, we were sat in a Chinese buffet in Northampton and in between stuffing what we could into our bellies and pockets we stumbled over the topic of the Babybel advert, the one where the people chase after it rolling down the hill.
Our guitar tech at the time, infamous folk musician Pete Roe, announced, probably realising this was the only time he could conceivably share this information, that in Gloucester they held a cheese rolling competition every year – the age-old cult tradition in which people literally risk every limb in order to catch a wheel of cheese cartwheeling down a hill. The cheese can reach ninety miles an hour. Within the next ten minutes, we were on the phone to our label assigning them to find someone to document it, resulting in James Caddick making the music video to ‘Can You Give It’. He captured a truly eccentric and heartwarming example of British tradition.
The film follows the champion cheese chaser, as he attempts and succeeds in retaining his title. As a champion, he’s everything you would hope him to be – driven, athletic and likeable. We were particularly pleased with the respect the video showed the sport and that it feels like it’s celebrating it. However, the video perhaps more than anything else is a small indication of an aged British obsession with coming up with eccentric and meaningless forms of competition!
There is probably something very innate about it. My earliest memory of school is closely associated with cult playground games, of a more primal, but similar spirit. Football stickers (got, got, got, NEED!) was the god of ages nine to ten. Hugo’s completed Premier League ’94 album is still lovingly stored amongst family photo albums. Pogs and marbles were both huge phases, probably at most schools, but we had them controversially banned because both were being used as weapons in heated match-ups.
Conkers though is a game that transcends age. An apparently still popular children’s game, the first recorded game of conkers goes back as far as 1848. Since then many philosophies have been developed as to how to produce a genuinely unbeatable conker. The most famous method, of which some write off as myth or cheating, is to soak your conker in vinegar. Michael Dutton, from Gloucester, asserts that he used this technique for fifty years and was unstoppable until he came across a young pretender to the throne, whose conker was soaked in Oil of Olay, was too strong for his. Apparently this made it more malleable and helped it absorb the blow of his tried and tested vinegar-soaked conker. F. Barry from Glamorgan, though, simply claims that the most effective way is to attach them to a string when new and soft and leave them in a drawer for a year until next season. He proudly writes that his children and grandchildren still use the very same conkers and have never been defeated. I love the scope for individuality in your conker, lovingly tending to it however you see fit and proudly sending it to battle. I think that it is also testament to the initial principle in which games like this were created that they still exist. There is obviously also a genuine British eccentricity to it, probably best outlined by a North American’s query sent in to The New Scientist’s ‘Last Word’ column. She asks: “I gather they are chestnuts attached to a string, what is it you British do with the chestnuts? I suspect it doesn’t involve consumption.”
Other sports of a similar vein include pillow fighting, pancake racing, barrel walking, duck herding, bog snorkelling and the list goes on. All these sports have in common is that they have almost all been running for more than a hundred years and are kept alive by local communities, generation by generation. At first glance they can all be written off as ‘sport gone crazy’, perhaps annoyingly wacky pointless competitions. But in fact there’s an understanding of culture, escapism and, as mentioned, a community spirit to them. Those traits are sometimes – rightly or wrongly – missing in modern life.
I suppose my point is that it’s good to have something to do, something to care about, a genuine passion. However meaningless it appears. I should also make it clear that I have not participated in and am not an expert in any of these things, but I think they all hold a commendable joy to them. In times where modern sport (which I still love) has started to merge its spirit of competition and excitement with materialism, bravado and a Lombardi-esque ethic that winning is the only thing that matters and we are increasingly told what to wear, listen to, eat and see, it is reassuring to know that these sports still exist and are in good shape!”
