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“Now, you will recollect in a wrestling match it is not the person who gets the most throws in each match that is said to win, but he that gets the last throw and keeps his adversary down.” 
(By Reverend Alfred Hewlett, M.A., incumbent of Astley, near Manchester, 1858)

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 (a proper Lancashire name for “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 matches 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 (Lancashire’s “throttling”, that’s what they called the act of strangulation), breaking limbs, biting, gouging, ripping nostrils and mouth, pulling ears and hair, 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 of the Duchy of Red Rose, it clearly was a “fair” or an upright struggle, and for the most part of it was nothing but a basic shin-kicking contest.  Notably, similar shin-kicking matches were held in different localities all around the country and represented a degenerated form of a rural pastime, an old English wrestling style, which was commonly known as Wrastling At Arms’ Length, the most credible evidences of which will follow this article.

An interesting observation regarding the two most common modes of traditional English wrestling was made by Thomas Salmon (1679-1767), a native of Bedfordshire, and a historian, who obviously witnessed wrestling matches in England in the 17-18 centuries, this is what we learn from him in this regard:  “Wrestling is a contention between two men that endeavor to trip up one another’s heels while they hold each other at arms end; at which some little fellows are so dexterous that they will lay one of twice their bulk and strength flat upon the ground by a gentle touch of the leg; but where the parties are suffered to close the man of bulk has a considerable advantage in this exercise.” (from The Present State of the British Isles, beginning with that Part of Great Britain called England, 1730). I personally am in a great appreciation of the author’s sense of humor, when he speaks about a “gentle touching” of opponent’s leg, which in the foreign translations of this very text (let’s say in the Dutch one) was substituted with another, a more appropriate term, that of “kicking”.

The reason why the twentieth century writers were so confused about purring matches and up and down fights, happened due to the fact that none of them actually ever witnessed either of those combative pastimes, nor they realized that they are very different and have nothing in common, nor they really tried to understand the true nature, the origins of those old Lancashire fighting games. In the past there were many attempts to interview the elderly residents of South and East Lancashire regarding the puncing matches and some of those who witnessed those fights were still around but it appears that they were ashamed to even talk about that vicious pastime of their ancestors.

Few years ago I was lucky to obtain an audio record of an interview of Daniel Tattersall, a resident of Rishton, Lancs who was born in 1917 at Church, Lancs.  That interview was made in 1994, when he was 77yo. I immediately shared the audio record of this interview with my dear friend Mr Alan Bamber of Wrestling Heritage of UK and it was him who helped me to better understand the interview which was spoken in a dialect native to Lancashire’s residents. Alan Bamber also helped me with the genealogy of the Tattersall family to kind of better picture the time frame of the described events from the past. The Tattersall’s interview was crucial in my studies of this subject and helped me to finally explain the nature of Lancashire clog fighting game thus putting an end to all the misinformation which has accumulated for decades.

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.

Both those gentlemen from Blackburnshire even though provided such detailed descriptions of the puncing contests yet never witnessed one.

The 19c American newspapers thus spoke about the dangerous pastime of Lancashire working class men. Unfortunately the author of this article on purring didn’t tell us the year, and I wasn’t lucky enough to be able to locate references to this infamous match in the contemporary English newspapers. Still, we got what we have got:

"An account of an especially brutal purring match comes from Salford, Eng. The contestants were two miners James Morris, of Bury, and James Miller, of Oldham. Each wore clogs with pointed toes, covered with iron plates, with wire rods on the sole, and around the edges were rims of iron. Their knee-breeches were tied above the calf, and they kicked each other on the shins for £25 a-side for nearly an hour the brutes gashed and slashed each other, until Morris fell from pain and weakness consequent upon the loss of blood. Miller was also horribly cut, although he was declared the winner. Morris had to be carried away in a cart. During this disgusting encounter hundreds of men stood about the ring and made their bets with the same interest and excitement as at a decent trial of endurance."  

The best Lancashire puncers were all Rochdalians, a certain Thos Walton, the noted wrestler of the 1840s, whose father kept the Healey Stones Farm in Spotland, was the champion-puncer of his generation and exhibited prodigious feats of strength.

The only known to me in existence firsthand account of a professional puncing match after the Lancashire fashion (yes, it was a legitimate sport, at least in Bolton, Lancs with betting playing an important role in it) is given in Chapter 36 of The Wind of Circumstance (1938), a biographical book written by a native Boltonian, the author called Harold Dearden (1882-1962).

“One Saturday morning during the holidays, while I was cleaning my pony's harness in the stable-yard (it was one of my father's theories that "a properly educated person should be able to do anything"), old Joe came up to see me with a broad grin on his rosy, clean-shaven face.

""Ave ye ever seen a puncin' match, Master 'arold?" he said, a "punce" being our Lancashire synonym for a kick. I admitted that I had not. There was one coming off that afternoon, he told me then, at a "pub" on the moors within a hour or two's walking distance. I said I would like to see it immensely, so shortly after lunch we set off together.” (Chapter 35).

The Dearden’s story not only confirmed the words of Tattersall and Shorrocks, it has provided a very detailed and vivid description of the combat itself.

And these are the highlights of how the rules according to which the clog business was done in the vicinity of Bolton in the 1800s provided by an actual witness of the puncing match. Apparently the combatants (obviously two local miners) appeared “naked except for the breeches and clogs”, and “each put his hands on the shoulder of the other, the left hand inside and the right hand outside the arm of his opponent”, which was known as a “fair grip”; the contestants had to keep each other at arms length throughout the fight and it is from that grip the fall is given; the match was conducted in rounds and “a round only ended when a man fell”; it was not necessary the number of won rounds that gave victory to a certain fighter but it rather mattered who won the “last fall” which made an opposite party quit the contest; in case of both fighters unwilling to continue the fight it is then that the score mattered. This last condition helped me to finally understand the rules which governed a famous 1769 wrestling match in London between a certain Mancunian and his adversary from the neighboring Cheshire County. After 42 minutes of intense kicking they decided to stop their contest, be my only guess, and at that point the score was in favor of the Lancastrian fighter, and hence he was proclaimed the victor and entitled to the stakes.

“Yesterday Morning the great Wrestling-Match, which has been long depending, between Mitchel, Esq. of Cheshire, and Mr. Milbourn, of Manchester, for 200 Guineas, was decided in the Long Field, Bloomsbury, in Favour of Mr. Milbourn, who gave his Antagonist six Falls to four in 42 Minutes: There were upwards of £2000 depending on this Match”. (St. James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post March 11th-14th, 1769).

This “rounds” system also has resemblance with how were conducted the collar and elbow wrestling matches after the Lincolnshire fashion, with fair shoes and no padding (the deadliest “kicking form” of traditional English rural wrestling) in which they only recognized the fair falls on the backs and didn’t count the number of half-falls (read rounds, or foils). Thus said the combatants would collar each other and desperately kick shins for many, many “rounds” (go-downs) until finally the fair back was given, after one of the two was no longer able to stand and simply was pushed backwards, tripped or back-heeled. Interestingly, in 1834, the Lincolnshire championship wrestling match ended differently, one of the two simply quit the bout. Yes, Lincolnshire wrestling was in fact very similar to the old Lancashire’s puncing matches.

According to Dearden it“was a foul to kick above” the knee; not only it was allowed to adjust and improve the initial hold during the fight, you just had to maintain that fair grip which is to keep him at arms end, even clasping hands behind the opponent’s neck and thus making him bear all your weight on the back of his neck was also an approved clog fighting technique! This fact leaves no doubts that the original proper name of Lancashire’s puncing was wrestling (at arms’ length)!

Interestingly, the author himself was well trained in the game of wrestling and according to him it was actually him who first introduced regular wrestling practices at Cambridge. Not only that, he participated in wrestling  competitions and has won several district tournaments, and almost won the open to all county championship in which he reached the final but lost it to a more experienced opponent who was a collier by trade. Dearden’s wrestling background was based on the magical tricks which he learned from a Lancashire man whom he called Old Joe who once was a professional wrestler after the Lancashire fashion. That ill-fated Old Joe once happened to accidentally kill his opponent during one of his matches. This is what happened, according to Old Joe he applied his favorite Flying Mare throw (which he describes as a throw given from the wrist and ankle hold) on his man, lifted him bodily and slammed him with a great force to the ground, right onto his head, and the latter obviously lost his life due to the dislocation of his neck. A very Lancashire finisher for an unscripted (how can we doubt that?!), £30 a-side (no reasons to doubt that either?!) wrestling match with a silver kettle trophy being awarded the victor, I have to say...

Also Harold Dearden was privileged to attend classes taught by the world’s champion wrestler G. Hackenschmidt whom he praised the most, as well as he was very lucky to take some jiu-jitsu classes from Tarro Myaki himself! All that martial arts exposure surely served him well on the streets. 

This is all for now, I am very happy to share a chapters from the Dearden’s book in which the puncing match got mentioned, and I invite all of you my dear friends to join me in this time travelling to the nineteenth century Bolton, and I wish everyone to enjoy the read, or better say, to enjoy the ride!
Chapter 36.

It was a lovely afternoon. There was scarcely a cloud in the sky and the air was clear and fresh, with that peculiar tang to it which I have never found anywhere but on those wind-swept fells of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Only here and there, at what seemed an incredible distance, was it possible to see the black pall which hung (and hangs even yet, day in and day out from one year's end to another) over the coal-mines and factories which hemmed us in grimly on every side.

Lancashire is like that. No matter how noisy or how ugly a town may be and some of them achieve an almost unbelievable standard in both these respects-it rarely takes more than an hour or two of steady walking to bring you to a world of space and peace and unspoiled beauty, which you share only with the plover and the lark.

With this in mind it is perhaps not surprising that Lancashire folk are among the sturdiest of walkers. Few of the men who surrounded me that afternoon would have thought anything of covering twenty miles or more to see a football match. Characteristically short and wiry, with their sombre clothes and woollen mufflers, they radiated vitality and cheerfulness. Crammed together like sardines, sitting, kneeling, or standing, on our sun-warmed wall, on upturned boxes or other points of vantage, or on the ground itself, it would have been hard to associate any of us with such a dismal thing as a loom or a pit shaft. Pipes were in full blast, tobacco juice spouted in every direction, and rough banter, often in such abstruse dialect as to be unintelligible to me, filled the air. The girls, with their shawls thrown back from their heads, laughed or squealed ecstatically as the circumstances demanded. I was supremely happy.

We had not long to wait. A little group of men emerged from the back door of the "pub," two of them wearing overcoats and two carrying buckets. After a short colloquy the overcoated men shook hands and, followed by their seconds, took up their positions on the chairs provided for them at opposite sides of the yard. A minute or two later, at a signal from the referee, the contestants slipped off their overcoats and advanced briskly towards him.

They were both unmistakably miners. Naked except for breeches and clogs, their bodies from the waist upwards were disproportionately heavy with those muscles which come from the swinging of a pick in confined spaces, and dotted and streaked here and there with what at first sight looked like tattooing, but which was, in fact, coal-dust embedded in the tissue of the skin. But though there was little to choose between them in respect of their physical development, one man was considerably older than the other, so much so that I remarked on it to Joe.

"Ay," he said, "he's no chicken. But in this game it's guts as counts in the end, and owd Isaac's as full of guts as an egg's full of meat. Yon lad'll know he's been through summat afore long, I'll tell thee."

This somewhat gloomy prophecy, though it was heartily endorsed by many of our neighbours, was clearly opposed to the expectations of the young man it most concerned. He shook hands with his opponent in the jauntiest manner. Then, by way of limbering up his leg muscles, he executed a sort of impromptu dance, pirouetting here and there, bringing up his knees almost to meet his chest, and waving his hands and grinning in the cheeriest way in response to the shouts of "Good lad, Dick," and similar exhortations from his friends in the crowd. Old Isaac watched this performance with the contemplative solemnity of a dray-horse, massaging now and then with his two hands the muscles of his thighs and calves, but for the most part standing there in an attitude indicative of the completest detachment, with his heavy arms hanging by his sides.

At length Dick was ready and turned to face him. Each put his hands on the shoulders of the other, the left hand inside and the right hand outside the arm of his opponent, and the referee carefully satisfied himself that the grip was in each case a fair one. Finally, standing between them, he placed his two hands on their heads, as though pronouncing a benediction, and for a moment or two the three figures stood there, tense and motion-less. You might have heard yourself breathe. Then the referee snatched his hands away and sprang back.

Instantly both men, locked thus together, with their heads lowered to watch each other's feet, began to move swiftly hither and thither about the yard like boxers. When an opening presented itself they kicked like lightning at shin or ankle, feinting by shifting from one foot to the other and at once guarding their own limbs and making their opponent kick himself, as it were, by meeting his oncoming leg with the out-turned sole of their own clog. The speed and accuracy of their kicking, which was done more often than not by a deadly little sideways flick from the ankle, were astonishing. The graceful-ness of their movements as they wove to and fro, and the rattle and clatter of their flying clogs, reminded me at once of the troups of Morris-dancers who enlivened the streets during the May-day processions through the town.

But even to my unskilled eyes, though I could not have said which of the two men was the more likely to prove the winner, the difference in their respective tactics was manifest from the start. Dick, conscious of his youth and agility, did all he could to force his older opponent to cover as much ground as possible, in the hope of tiring him and so making him eventually slower and heavier on his feet. He darted from side to side like a fighting mongoose, and the metal toe-caps on his heavy clogs flashed in the sun like a heliograph. The rapidity of those flying feet was bewildering.

Compared to him, old Isaac looked positively lumbering. He kicked less often than Dick, too, and it very soon looked as though the slowness which was the inevitable accompaniment of his age was proving as much a handicap in defence as in attack. A bright little trickle of blood was coursing down his left leg within a minute or two of the start. "Rattle, tap, tap," went those flying clogs. And when from time to time Isaac lifted his head in an uncontrollable spasm of pain and the crowd saw his sweating and distorted face, the yells of triumph from Dick's supporters reached a pitch of almost maniacal intensity.

A round only ended when a man fell. It seemed impossible that anyone should suffer such agony and still remain on his feet. I was glad when at last, in attempting to keep pace with his opponent in one of those swift turning movements and at the same time ward off a particularly shrewd kick which caught him just below the right knee, the old man stumbled, crossed his feet, and fell full length on the flags. His seconds ran forward and, with their hands under his knees and shoulders, carried him to his chair. He lay back and gasped for breath, with his eyes shut and his face a writhing mask of pain, while his seconds dragged his clogs off and sponged his face, his head, and his lacerated shins with cold water, and Dick's supporters shouted themselves hoarse with delight.

At once a squad of small boys and girls came running from the "pub" with immense tin trays stacked high with mugs of beer. These they distributed to all and sundry by the simple method of walking round the fringe of the crowd and allowing their trays to be plundered as they passed. The men in the front row passed the mugs up to those behind. When the mugs were empty they were passed back again and banked in rows on the ground, each with the right number of coppers inside, to be collected during the next interval.

The sun poured down. The air became heavy with the fumes of beer and tobacco. There was a tremendous babble of voices and a renewed outbreak of betting. Heavy odds were offered against Isaac and, though Dick had by no means escaped his share of punishment, one had only to compare his quiet breathing and smiling face with the pitiful state of his opponent to feel that they were justified. But I saw, to my astonishment, that Joe was far from sharing this opinion. He was backing his undiminished confidence in Isaac with what seemed to me to be insane recklessness.

"Ye'll see summat, soon," he kept saying. But in spite of my immense respect for his shrewdness in matters of this sort I found it hard to believe him.

The next two rounds did nothing to encourage me to take a more hopeful view of old Isaac's prospects. They were practically a repetition of the first. The first minute's interval had clearly been too short to allow Isaac properly to get his breath again. When he fell for the second time it was as plain as could be that he had done so from sheer exhaustion. The third round was a mercifully short one, but the punishment he had taken before it ended was appalling. His shins from the knee downwards (for it was a foul to kick above this point) were a sickening sight, and his left ankle was swollen to such a monstrous size that his seconds had the greatest difficulty in ramming his foot into the clog before "time" was called and he heaved himself upright again. He reeled a little, too, as he left his chair. And when Dick, as they came to grips, playfully ruffled his grizzled shock of hair and made some chaffing remark which I was too far away to catch, the old fellow shook his head and grinned, as though reluctantly admitting that all was not too well with him.

I shall never forget those next few minutes. Young Dick went all out for a speedy finish. Isaac was by now so slow and clumsy on his feet, so crippled and powerless in defence or attack, as to make it unthinkable that even the courage to which Joe had paid such a shining tribute could enable that gasping and reeling old body to stand up much longer under the shattering onslaught to which it was exposed. He was whirled, staggering, in every direction. Bent almost double, he hung from Dick's shoulders at arms' length; while those flying clogs, crimson now from their toe-caps up to their shining brass buckles, relentlessly slashed and hammered against his legs.

Suddenly there was a roar from the crowd. Old Joe, who ever since the fight began had been twitching and jerking at my elbow like a man in an epileptic fit, yelled: "Good lad owd Isaac!" and bounced about on the wall like a lunatic.

"What's happened?" I shouted, for the noise around me was now deafening.

Joe put his mouth to my ear.

"Th'owd lad's getten inside."

I stared at him stupidly and he clapped his right hand under his left ear to illustrate his meaning.

"He's been playin' for that all the time." He stabbed with his finger in the direction of the fighters. "Ye'll see some puncin' now," he bellowed.

I understood then what he meant. And I realised a moment later that what I had assumed to be the inevitable result of age was in truth ringcraft supported by almost superhuman hardiness. Old Isaac had taken advantage of a momentary inattention on the part of his opponent to shift his right hand from the outside to the inside of the other's outstretched left arm. In this position he could clasp his hands together and bring his whole weight to bear on Dick's neck, and thus not only tire him but immeasurably interfere with his swiftness and balance. It was for this that he had lumbered round for so long in that pitifully ineffective manner, deliberately doing little in the way of attack and stoically exposing himself to injury: to induce just that degree of over-confidence in his opponent which he had utilised like a flash with results which were immediately apparent.

From now on, it was old Isaac who led the dance. And it was one dramatically free from the cavortings which had formerly characterised it.

Young Dick was like a bird with a broken wing. Over and over again some swift movement on his part to one side or another was broken midway by a sudden jerk of those powerful hands on his neck. And if he hopped on one leg for so long as a second to regain his balance, that leg was a target old Isaac rarely missed.

Youth and agility went for nothing now. With his whole weight suspended from his interlocked hands old Isaac had got his man where he wanted him: pinned for all practical purposes to one spot. He settled down grimly to the task of kicking him into unconsciousness with as little delay as possible. He made no attempt to guard himself. He concentrated on inflicting the maximum amount of injury. And for at least ten minutes young Dick did his very gallant best to compete with him, in spite of the fact that, handicapped as he was, and in the face of old Isaac's reputation for toughness, he must have known from the outset that it was madness to do so. Certainly his supporters knew it. Scores of voices yelled frantically to him to: "Drop and taake a rest, Dick." It was undoubtedly excellent advice, for by this means he could have escaped from that deadly grip on his neck and recommenced the contest with everything as much in his favour as before.

But Dick had more than victory at stake. His pride would not let him drop before he must. He set himself desperately to beat old Isaac at his own game. It was simply a question now as to which of the pair could stand most punishment. Joe had assuredly been right when he said I should "see some puncin'." They stood there doggedly, face to face, and kicked and kicked unceasingly, while every man and woman in the yard shouted or screamed in a frenzy of excitement.

But it was soon clear that to a contest fought on these lines there could be only one end. The younger man gave as good as he took; he may even have given more, as far as the actual number of kicks was concerned. But the old man's legs might have been made of iron, so little did he seem to be affected by the injuries they received. There was no more wincing now on his part, and no more uplifting of that agonised and distorted face. All that sort of thing had served its purpose and there was no further need of it. If he felt any pain at all (and one must suppose he did, since he was human) he gave no sign of it. He might have been engaged in kicking down a door.

Dick, on the other hand, was in a pitiful condition in a very few minutes, so much so that the odds came down with a run and were soon as heavily against him as they had formerly been in his favour. Partly from sheer exhaustion and partly no doubt from the unrelenting drag of old Isaac's hands around his neck, his head sank gradually lower and lower, and his knees yielded more and more helplessly under him. And once, when he turned up his face as Isaac had done (but for how different a reason!), I could plainly see that he was blubbering. There came a time at last when, as he hung, limp and helpless, from Isaac's shoulders, his legs were literally kicked from under

him and he sagged slowly to the ground. "The owd un's getten 'im," yelled Joe for the thousandth time at my elbow. The puncin' match was at an end.”

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.”

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. Although 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.

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.

© 2025 Ruslan C Pashayev All Rights Reserved.