1 . If you’re a fan of football, you might have wondered how it began. I went to Atherstone, a town in the heart of England, to see the _______ of the game. It takes place _______ on Shrove Tuesday, and if you had lived there eight hundred years ago, you would have _______ exactly the same game being played.

_______ the game, all the shopkeepers in the town’s main street, Long Street, _______ their shops to make way for the event. At half past two, sweets and coins were thrown out of the windows of Barclays Bank to local _______ waiting below. Like every year, they were given the day off school _______. After children moved back from the centre of the street, men and boys _______ instead. The crowd began a countdown. At three o'clock, a ball too heavy to kick very far was _______ from Barclays Bank too. For the next two hours, the ________ would be a moving mass of bodies, all fighting to ________ the ball.

The men who ________ are usually from Atherstone, or from nearby. Players often work ________, in family groups or pub connections, but there aren’t any official ________. The game itself has only two ________: play is limited to Long Street and participants are not allowed to ________ anyone. To begin with, the players were a little ________, but as the time progressed, things got serious. When the final whistle sounded at 5:00 pm, the winner, who had ________ to hold the ball until the end, was found from the bottom of a pile of men. After the fierce contest, his T-shirt had been completely ________. One player suffered a head injury and others had black eyes and slight injuries. ________, everyone was happy.