Atherstone Ball Game 2026 Feb 22    reddit.com
In "barely a sport" world news, last week was the Atherstone Ball Game.

The ball gets thrown from the offices above Mark Webster estate agents at 3pm by a local respected member of the community and from 3pm to 4.30pm, it's for the women/kids to have a try, and it's very tame. When the claxon sounds at 4.30pm, that's when it gets feral. Whoever is holding the ball when the claxon sounds again at 5pm is declared the winner. The prize: being able to say you won it and a free pint at The Stag & Pheasant. All the shops down Long Street are boarded up in preparation. If the game falls during term time, schools close early for it! In the weeks running up to the game, the ball is taken to various places (shops, schools, businesses) for people to sign it.

The persistence of tradition: the curious case of Henry Symeonis 2025 Apr 2    blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
What happens when you're so hated that the Oxford statutes personally snub you by name? What happens then when you're not memorable enough to be biographied in any other form, and your sole contribution to history is your legal snubbing?

Nowhere in the statutes did it explain who this Henry Symeonis (or Simeonis) was, what he was supposed to have done or why those getting their MAs should never agree to be reconciled with him. Who was Henry Symeonis and why was he specifically named like this in the University’s governing regulations? What had he done to offend the University so much?

In 2013, Oxford's Bodleian Libraries finally dug up the answer.