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by Ruslan C Pashayev

Special thanks to Alan Bamber of Wrestling Heritage of UK, Lewis Hoyle of Rishton Library (Rishton, Lancs), and The Lancashire Record Office, (Lancashire Archives), Preston, Lancs.

There has been a great deal of discussion and disagreement on what the Lancashire’s own sport of Clog Fighting, or purring, actually was, and as a matter of fact many confusing and contradicting each other accounts on puncing matches, or the “kicking game”, have been around forever to only prove that a serious study of this subject has never taken place.

In those countless references, the purring, kicking, or better say shin-kicking contests were often confused with another Lancashire “manly” pastime, that of an up and down fighting. It is fair to say that both those miners’-and-weavers’ games were of brutal and somewhat medieval nature and featured ferocious kicking of opponent. But that was the only thing they had in common.

The up and down fighting was nothing but an unregulated prize-fighting, a no holds barred, free for all fight for money, an atrocious exhibition of all the bestial that is still there, deep in humans nature, under the very thin superficial layer of civilization. That so-called sport besides purring (kicking) which was allowed to be applied at any part of opponent’s body from head to toe, and at any time, whether standing or when one of the two or both were on the ground, also incorporated fist-fighting (regular punching, boxing), wrestling (throwing, giving falls), head-butting as well as such brutalities of uncivilized, barbarian societies as deliberate hurting of opponent by choking him, breaking his limbs, biting and gouging him and etc. Many of such fights were decided in the desperate animalistic struggle on the ground. And as an outcome of those contests many of the participants either lost their lives or were maimed for life. This disgusting sport was a huge turn off in Victorian England, it became illegal and its promoters and participants were prosecuted by the State. Interestingly, what was inappropriate and against the law back then nowadays is considered a norm and a legit sport and it has its own culture, the army of faithful fans and advocates of it.

Very opposite to all of that were the puncing matches or an actual purring, the clog fighting as it was known in eastern parts of Lancashire (in Salford and Blackburn Hundreds), it clearly was a “fair” or an upright struggle, and for the most part of it was nothing but a “fair shin-kicking contest”.  Notably, similar shin-kicking matches were held in different localities all around the country.

The reason why the writers were so confused about it was in that most of them never actually witnessed either of those combative pastimes, to realize that they are very different and have nothing in common, nor they really tried to understand the true nature, the origins of those old fighting games.

Few years ago I was lucky to obtain an audio record of an interview of Daniel Tattersall who was born in 1917 at Church, Lancs.  That interview was made in 1994, when he was 77yo. This interview was crucial in my studies of this subject and helped me to better understand the nature of Lancashire clog fighting game. In his interview Daniel Tattersall gives all the necessary information about the rules of Lancashire Clog Fighting as it was practiced by his father and his peers the working class men of Rishton, Lancs. Daniel’s father, Arthur Tattersall of Rishton, Lancs, (born 1884 - died 1959), was a collier by trade, a son of John Tattersall, who was a weaver.

According to Daniel Tattersall clog fighting was a way of settling neighborly arguments. This pastime did not disadvantage the smaller man unlike other forms of fighting. Matches took place on any spare ground or "back end," which means behind the houses. Betting was common. Daniel Tattersall had never witnessed a match, though he saw dents and scars on his father's legs, and his knowledge of the game is based on what his father who himself was a clog fighter told him about it. D. Tattersall died in 1997 at Blackburn.  Below I am giving a transcript of the parts of that interview where Mr. Tattersall fully and completely explained clog fighting.

“At Rishton, on Spring Street, and they told me when I was a young lad, that my father was involved in a clog-fight on Saturday evening. He was going home and had his shoes on and this man challenged him to a fight, a clog-fight, and a clog-fight in those days meant that if two people had a dispute they would settle it by a clog-fight. So he said wait there and I will go get my clogs on. And he came back.

What you do is you place your arms on your opponent’s shoulders like that, and when a word is “Go!” between you, you kick at one another, but you do not take your arms off your opponent, you just kick. That particular fight lasted about three minutes. In which case his opponent went down and that was it. Once he went down on the floor he was a beaten man. Well, they had to keep hold, didn’t matter what they did, they could do any turning they wanted as long as they didn’t release their hold, once they did that they had lost, whether they were beaten to the ground or not. If they loosen the hold they lost. It lasted about three minutes and he got one good kick and that was enough to put him on the ground. And that was the end of that, and the dispute was settled.

I asked him what the grudge was. And the grudge was apparently they have been to the club and got into an argument about the price of a pint and when they couldn’t settle it by such means he decided that they will settle it by clog-fighting. And my father obliged him and won. He didn’t say anything what they had to wear, only that they have to have clogs on. Clogs in those days were with irons on. I can believe that my father had a few scars on his legs, he got them when was learning how to clog-fight. It was a common thing to settle arguments that was one way of settling arguments which mainly developed in those clubs they went to and it would nearly quarrel many a time and they would take one another to task get your clogs on and we have a “Go!”

I never witnessed a clog-fight.  All I can talk about is the facts that my father talked about. He was never permanently injured by anyone. He had a few dents on his legs which I saw. At the back end (they fought), anywhere, on the spare ground. That was a common thing, betting. It was a working men’s’ sport, that is what they called it.”

Another similar audio record, an interview of Harold Shorrocks (born in 1917 at Church, Lancs) also sheds some light on this matter. His memories are also based on what his father, who died in 1970, told him. H. Shorrocks shared that his grandfather was a famous clog-fighting champion of Darwen, Lancs, and mentioned that they used to have similar  “puncing” matches in Wigan, Lancs too. He said that clog fighters would get injured legs and that a smaller, weaker man could get an advantage in that kind of fighting.

Some other accounts provide evidences that often time clog fighting contests were conducted in rounds, and every time one of the two fell to the ground, the round was over. Just like any upright wrestling games those fights were decided on actual physical falls, and they would fight as many rounds they needed until one is no longer able to get up and continue the fight, as well as that it was allowed to use legs and feet for throwing your adversary down (not only kicking but also tripping was OK), and that it had to be only fair kicking below the knee, using strength of your grip and of the arms, pushing, pulling, hauling, swaying, and etc to unbalance your opponent was all OK (any “turning” was allowed), and the hold had to be maintained during the struggle just like it is in collar-and-elbow wrestling, you couldn’t let go of your opponent until you felled him.

Based on these evidences it would be fair to summarize the above. The Lancashire Clog Fighting was a local Lancashire variation of traditional English rural form of wrestling “at arms’ length” which since the times immemorial included shin-kicking as one of the major but fair to say un-scientific takedown techniques, and which over the time degenerated into a completely new sport, the shin kicking. The participants weren’t willing to learn actual wrestling techniques and preferred to resort to kicking shins and that was all they did for the most part, but they still called their sport “wruslin”. Since the second half of 19c such shin-kicking games were known as being practiced in many places, in different regions of the country. This fact tells me that similar processes of transfiguration of  old, pre-industrial times wrestling into something else were happening not just in the eastern parts of Lancashire but elsewhere in England, and here below I am giving info on some regional variations of that the same old English wrestling game.

Origins of the Shin Kicking Game.
From A New Book of Sports (1885).

---For about two hundred and fifty years ago, the West-country wrestlers, then accounted undeniably the best in England, entered the ring in their doublets and hose, and clearly wore no boots or shoes. The practice of kicking appears to have grown up gradually after this time, in Devonshire, out of the perfectly lawful habit of "striking" with the leg at the leg. Boys and men in Devonshire often settled a private quarrel by a bout at wrestling, and the impromptu umpires who supervised such contests would not be able to distinguish between a fair "strike" and a veritable kick. The spectators often rather liked the innovation, which made the struggle more sensational, and thus the use of the shoe had come to be recognized to some extent before the middle of the last century-as we know from a book, which recommends that kicks should be met by standing low and parrying or stop- ping with the knee.---

Old Devon.
From Remarks on Irritative Fever (1825). By J. Butter.

---Now in Devonshire especially, a habit prevails of kicking shins in wrestling. In this gymnastic exercise, two men collar each other, and kick each other's legs; whosoever throws his opponent first on his back, gains the trial of strength. Now sometimes a man's shins may be kicked all over, and yet no bad consequences, so far as I am informed, have ever ensued from this sport.---

Old Somerset. Hard Shin-kicking at Taunton.
From Recollections of Taunton by an old Tauntonian (1883) E.F. Goldsworthy.

---Wrestling was another amusement. The Devonshire wrestlers frequently came to Taunton to contend with men of the town and neighbourhood.  Rab Channing and Tom Gainer were our local champions. Wrestling is a very healthy and useful exercise, but when the contest is carried on by kicking shins with hob-nailed and toe-tipt boots it becomes a very painful and dangerous amusement. I have seen men kicking away at each other's shins until they were scarcely able to stand from pain and loss of blood; when they could not get at each other's shins, each would try to lift his opponent bodily off his legs and dash him with great force to the ground.---

---Boys of course imitated the men. The first thing a boy would do when he met another was to lay hold of him by the collar with both hands, and the other boy would do the same. "Will you try a fall?" says one."Yes," says the other. They then would try to throw each other, and in making the attempt very often rolled together into the gutter. At this period you would see more boys with bleeding noses in one week than you would see now in a year. If mothers of the present day were to see their boys at such rough games they would squall their heads off their shoulders.---

Old Norfolk.
From Songs, Stories, and Sayings of Norfolk (1897) by W. Rye.

--- A peculiarly brutal of what Arderon calls wrestling but which seems much more like the “puncing” of Midlands is thus told by him in his MS collectrions in the British museum: "Their manner of wrestling is one of the foolish diversions that is in custom, which is this. At the Assizes, Easter, Whitsuntide, &c., a great number of boys and men gets together upon the Castle Hill, Chapel Field, and other publick places, where they form themselves into rings as they call it, when one of the boldest walks into it, challenging to wrestle with any one present. Immediately one or other accepts the challenge, which is no sooner done then they snatch hold of each other with their utmost strength, and then they begin to kick each other's legs with all the force and violence they are able, with shoes prepared and sharpened against the day, so that they cut even through their stockings every stroke they make, and very often before they part their some of them as long as they live. When the weakest is kicked as long as he can stand no longer, then a fresh man takes the conqueror, and for five or six hours together."---

Old Lincolnshire.  August Kick-boxing at Stixwould and Benington.
From A Lincolnshire Calendar (1997) by M. Sutton.

---“A sport event known locally as kick-boxing, and also as Lincolnshire wrestling “russling” took place in the country during early August. The sport involved kicking your opponent in the shins.”---

---“There was once a year set aside a day for an event known as kick-boxing. The event took place in a certain field and attracted a good crowd.”---

Old Derby, Hard Shin-Kicking at Alfreton.
From a Newspaper, Derby Mercury, Nov 24th, 1875 Page 4.

---“We are informed, that the second annual Statute Fair at Alfreton, in this County, on the 22d Instant (being Old Martinmas Day) commenced with great splendour;…At Noon a wrestling commenced, and Shins were broken in without Mercy, upon a Stage erected for that Purpose. This athletick Exercise drew a vast Concourse of People together, whose Patience begun to be exhausted, so many Heros appeared to claim bright Honour at this Sport, that it was near Night before it was over.”---  

Foreign sources (Dutch, 18c).
From Hedendaagsche Historie of tegenwoordige staat  van Groot Brittannie (1754).

--- "The game of wrestling is also practiced among them (English), and some shorter man knows how to put a much taller and stronger man than him on the ground, by kicking his legs."---

Interestingly, a similar wrestling “at arms length” game was very popular in Colonial America where it was known under different names, such as square-hold or box-wrestling and etc. In America this traditional manly pastime was preserved in its original wrestling match format, and never deteriorated into a pure shin-kicking fight.

Square-Hold American Fashion in Kennebunk, York County, Maine.
From Patriotism at Home, Or, The Young Invincibles (1866) by I.H. Andersen.

---“THE WRESTLING MATCH. The manner of wrestling on the present occasion was to be that variously styled "square- hold," "arms'-length," "toe-to-toe," &c.; that is, the two wrestlers stand face to face, each with his right hand hold of his opponent's left shoulder, and his left hand grasping tightly the right elbow. Thus firmly grappled, each endeavors to throw the other upon his back by dexterously tripping at his antagonist's feet, and at the same moment suddenly exerting the strength of his hands and arms in the opposite direction. The rules of the contest prohibit the use of the arms without the accompanying "trip," because such a course would invariably give the stronger party the advantage. There is a good deal of skill to be displayed in this mode of wrestling, and it is not always the stronger one of the two that comes off as conqueror.”---

Ruslan C Pashayev is an expert-member of the Traditional Sports Team of the Instytut Rozwoju Sportu i Edukacji (the Institute of Sport Development and Education), Warsaw, Poland.

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