FOR many, the biggest risk they take on Shrove Tuesday is flipping a pancake.

But in a usually serene North-East village, windows will be boarded up and cars removed from the streets as residents prepare for one of the most reckless and frantic sporting occasions known to man.

Hundreds of people will travel to Sedgefield, County Durham, today and throw themselves into the scrum as they compete in the traditional Shrove Tuesday ball game.

Historians believe the game dates back about 1,000 years and started life as a four-hour football match between local farmers and tradesmen.

More gruesome folk tell a tale of warring tribes using heads instead of a ball.

Alison Hodgson, of Sedgefield Local History Society, said: "I have seen articles about the game in early 19th Century newspapers showing it was around for a long time before that. We are fairly sure it has been held since at least medieval times.

"I think it most likely started out several hundreds of years ago as a game of football between farm workers and town people.

"They used goals at either end of the village, one in a blacksmith's pond at North End and the other in a stream on Spring Lane."

Each year, one of the community's most respected elders starts proceedings by passing the ball through a bull ring on the village green three times at 1pm before it is hurled into the air for pandemonium to ensue.

This year, the honour falls to 92-year-old Mary Barron, who has lived in Sedgefield all her life and raised her five children in the village.

She said: "I am very pleased to be doing it, I have supported it for many years and never thought I would see the day I was asked to start the ball game.

"One of my daughters, Joan Merrington, who delivered post in the area, would have been asked, but she died last year. She would have been very proud."

The game will end between 4pm and 5pm when the holder returns to the bull ring and repeats the opening ceremony to win.

Rumour has it that a cork softball was flown 4,000 miles from Canada to the UK, where a traditional leather outer was sewn on to it in preparation for this year's game.

The 12in ball is much closer in size to the original than those used in recent years, when players have turned to the sports of cricket or polo to find a smaller ball for the event.

Last week, the ball mysteriously turned up at a village pub and was carried through the village at the weekend, when residents donated money to a repairs fund to cover the cost of damage caused to windows on the day.

Village police officer PC Keith Todd is urging participants to take care of themselves and local premises and has warned motorists to avoid the village centre.

He said: "As there are no organisers, it is difficult to prepare, but we expect it to be a good day and remind people who do not want to take part to avoid the village centre in the afternoon."

* See tomorrow's paper for a full report on the action.

Last survivors of ancient games play on

SEDGEFIELD'S game is one of only a handful of anarchic street games to survive the officialdom and cotton-wool culture of the 21st Century.

On Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, the streets, fields and even the river at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, host one of the world's largest and most ancient games.

The Royal Ashbourne Shrovetide Football Game has thousands of players competing with a large hand-painted, cork-filled ball over two eight-hour periods.

There are only three rules -no death, no moving the ball by vehicle and no play after midnight.

Players join the Uppards or the Downards, who scramble through the streets trying to score in one of two goals three miles apart.

In Workington, Cumbria, there is a Hocktide contest of Uppies and Downies on Good Friday, the following Tuesday and the next Saturday. A winning goal is scored when a player reaches the gates of Workington Hall or the Quayside and the ball is thrown in the air three times.

The Borders town of Jedburgh, scene of many bloody battles between the Scottish and English, holds the Jethart Han' Ba' Game on February 2.

A ball with streamers attached -representing an Englishman's head - is thrown and carried, but never kicked, through the town until the players dunk the ball into the River Jed.

Every Christmas and New Year's Day, Orkney hosts one of the wildest games imaginable, The Kirkwall Ba'.

The two sides are the Uppies and the Doonies, with players heading towards a goal at the end of town their family comes from.

The Doonies' goal is the sea at Kirkwall Bay and the Uppies head for the main street. Tradition says that Uppie win means a good harvest, while victory for the Doonies will bring good fishing.

Similar games are played at Alnwick, Northumberland; Atherstone, in Warwickshire; Corfe Castle, in Dorset, and at Duns, in the Scottish Borders, where the game is between married and single men.