Today we are going to answer one of the big unresolved questions of our time: what if the Olympic games had not been invented in Hellenic Greece but in Gloucestershire, England.
The Cotswold Olimpick Games - in 1612, a lawyer from Gloucestershire named Robert Dover got permission from King James I to organize an annual public celebration of games and sports in the area of Cotswold. The idea was to promote physical prowess, social harmony, and a "good feeling among the common people towards their king"*. The games were to be held on a field called Kingcombe Plain on Thursday and Friday of Whit-Week (between mid-May and mid-June). At least aware of the ancient traditions, the games were given the title of "Olimpicks" almost right from the start.
A contemporary depiction of the games at Cotswold with Robert Dover seen riding on his horse at the bottom
However, while the ancient Greeks were riding chariots and throwing spears in honor of Zeus**, the participants at Cotswold invented a competition to kick each other in the shin repeatedly, throw sledgehammers, and a team dancing competition that involved dodging a beer-soaked cloth thrown by the opposing team (a sport called "dwile flonking" for those keen to learn more). Given this list, activities likely also included the hurried consumption of alcohol.
For the games, each year a temporary wooden building was constructed ("Dover Castle"), from which gunfire salutes were fired during the competitions. The contests were refereed by officials called sticklers named after the sticks they carried to break up competitions that got out of hand. This is also where the term "a stickler for the rules" comes from.
A modern rendition of the shin-kicking competition refereed by a stickler. Under 20th century rules, competitors are allowed to stuff their trousers with straw to dampen the blows
A certain reputation - As much fun as the crowds likely had attending the games, they soon developed a reputation for scandalizing the neighborhood. And it was not just the Puritans who believed the games just promoted immorality and drunkenness. In 1740, the poet William Somervile described the games as "just another drunken country festival" and "[a] general riot in which chairs, and forms, and battered bowls are hurled/With fell intent; like bombs the bottles fly". Another hundred years later, a local reverend described the games as "the trysting place of all the lowest scum of the population which lived in the districts lying between Birmingham and Oxford [...] demoralizing the whole neighbourhood." He also claimed up to 30,000 people attended.
Modern revival - The games ended in 1852 (interrupted for the first time since the Civil War in 1642), when the common land on which they had been staged was partitioned between local landowners and farmers and subsequently enclosed. After their revival in 1951, the games quickly gained popularity again and are now held annually with thousands of visitors. Along with the games, shin kicking was also resurrected and the games now host the World Shin-kicking Championships. In a sensible change to the rules, steel toe caps are now banned, and the use of straw is allowed to pad shins.
In the 2012, The British Olympic Association even went as far as claiming that the games were "the first stirrings of Britain's Olympic beginnings" (likely in much the same way that a medieval brawl in "The Drunken Duck" pub was Britain's first foray into parliamentary democracy).
Here is a video of the modern games:
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*Link
**Interestingly, Zeus would have probably preferred the debauchery at Cotswold over the ritualistic competition at Olympia (at least if Greek myths are anything to go by)