In 1612, local lawyer Robert Dover organised the first Cotswold Olimpick Games on this natural amphitheatre above Chipping Campden. Dover, who had moved to nearby Saintbury in 1611, wanted to channel the competitive spirit of local people into organised sport. With backing from wealthy merchant Baptist Hicks and royal patronage from James I — who even lent Dover a suit of his old clothes to wear — the games became a grand affair. Events included shin-kicking, wrestling, cudgel-fighting, horse racing, and coursing with hounds. Poets Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton wrote verses in support, and the British Olympic Association has recognised the games as 'the first stirrings of Britain's Olympic beginnings.' Dover presided over the games for forty years until his death in 1652. They were revived for the 1951 Festival of Britain, again in 1963 by the Scuttlebrook Wake Committee, and have been held annually since 1966, on the Friday after Spring Bank Holiday. The shin-kicking championship remains the headline event — competitors stuff straw down their trouser legs for padding and try to kick each other's shins until one falls. The word 'stickler' — meaning someone strict about rules — is believed to originate from the referee at these games, who used a stick to separate fighters.
“Poets Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton wrote verses in support, and the British Olympic Association has recognised the games as 'the first stirrings of Britain's Olympic beginnings.”
