
Northeastern sportswriter Harry Pearson has turned his jovial phrasing to many competitive pursuits, though is probably most closely associated with cricket. Considering the streak of stubborn regionalism that’s woven into that game’s image, Pearson is well placed to report on what No Pie, No Priest’s subheading calls “the folk sports of Britain” – some of which resemble a rustic, DIY cousin of cricket, and each of which survive in minute pockets while remaining invisible even to sports buffs with catholic tastes.
Over 15 chapters, we hear of a slightly larger number of sports (there are some umbrella contests, like the Highland Games, and multiple-coded things like crown green and lawn bowls): a potted history, which often stretches back to medieval times, and Pearson’s encounters with the doughty souls who keep these pastimes from extinction. Sometimes his journeys to a given region of Britain – many folk sports are played in a single county, or part of one – are as colourful as the contest he eventually witnesses.
Descriptions of contests like Oxfordshire favourite Aunt Sally, shin-kicking – exactly what it sounds like – and road bowling, which sounds berserk and necessitates a token visit to Ireland, are warm and evocative, celebrating both the strength of small communities and a nonconformist attitude to sporting culture. On the downside, Pearson’s prose style is ‘British sports hack’ in extremis, barely a sentence passing without a shoehorned gag or unwieldy simile, but plenty out there seem to like that.
No Pie, No Priest: A Journey Through the Folk Sports Of Britain, Harry Pearson (Simon & Schuster)
Price: £16.99. Info: here
words NOEL GARDNER