Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 70 - Hogball

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

Miles Jupp, Mike Wozniak and Greig Johnson join in for this episode in which we hear about William Hester’s plan to popularize the traditional English sport of hogball.  By Benjamin Partridge, Miles Jupp, Mike Wozniak and Greig Johnson. Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is sponsored by Oxenstrap, the new multi-purpose cattle harness from Mitchells. If it's not Mitchells, get back in the truck. Our tests show that an Oxenstrap harness is strong enough to secure a one-ton dairy cow to a jet ski moving at 60 miles per hour. But whatever you do, don't try to rerun this experiment. Seriously, don't do it. Just don't. Hang on, what are you doing? Is that a jet ski? For 10% off your next delivery, use the code I'm serious. Don't do it. Hello and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website

and printed magazine, brought to you by Oxenstrap. In this month's episode, we're talking to William Hester about his latest sports venture. Hello, my name is William Hester, a former dressage rider and now a leading sports entrepreneur. Last time we spoke to him, it was shortly before the 2016 Rio Olympics, where he was running a campaign to let cows compete. Indeed, he himself wanted to compete in the dressage event riding on his cow Deborah. Subsequent to that episode, William's campaign was unsuccessful and he was barred from competing on his cow. Many listeners will remember the news coverage of

what he did in response, camping out outside the arena in which the Olympic Dressage medal ceremony was taking place, and then firing up a very powerful muck spreader, pelting the spectators with wave after unrelenting wave of hot frothy liquid cow shite. I asked William why he did that. cowshite. I asked William why he did that. I couldn't really see another way. And so it was, yeah, I fired up the muck spreader and I made my position clear calmly, I felt, but authoritatively. Do you have any regrets about what you did? I still firmly believe that was the right way to go about it. I could, however, have met them halfway. I could have asked perhaps the man on the tannoy immediately prior to me going in with the muxpad. I didn't want him to tell people what I was going to do because the element of surprise is so important when you're staging these sorts of

protests. But to say something calmly along the lines okay ladies and gentlemen i can't tell you what is about to happen all i can advise you is that if you let it dry you can just brush it off and that that i think was the only failing to get a message like that to the gentleman on the tannoy that day was probably my only regret. Because on the day, of course, as soon as that happened, you were seeing people reaching into their bag, getting out a little packet of wet wipes, and really they were just spreading it around, weren't they? That's right. Yeah, you have to let it dry. It's the same with clothes. It's the same as it is with carpets. For goodness sake, let it dry. clothes it's the same as it is with carpets for goodness sake let it dry now as you've made clear in other interviews you've given since this event your plan i believe was was to go into the stadium once the muck had been spread across the crowd and to say to them hello i'm william hester this is a protest um about the the right for a character to compete in the Olympics. I've made my point.

Simply now wait for the sun to bake the shite and you can brush it off with one of these stiff brushes. I believe you had hundreds of brushes ready. You know, your complaint was never with the spectators, I don't think. But when it came to it, of course, you couldn't do that. Of course, you never even made it into the stadium because you were immediately arrested by the police that's right yes um the great thing

about those sort of size of muck spreaders i mean i've always got most of my agricultural equipment from um factories in north korea and they really cater for the sort of the large-scale agricultural ambition so that thing I actually when I went back and read the the the paperwork to fill the stadium in Rio that day I didn't actually need to be within the city boundary it would have had the reach it would have had the the the firepower you could have done it from international waters again that is a that is probably something that I would do differently if the opportunity to make myself heard in this way ever happens. So yes, I had hit the button. It started to pour. I think I have a lot of respect for the police. I call them a lot. I think that they acted too hastily. They didn't ask me what I was doing.

They didn't ask me who I was. Crucially, they didn't ask, how do we turn it off? They just bundled me into the van. All I would say is it wasn't just me who learned lessons that day. So you were released from the prison in 2019? That's right, yes, thanks to the work of Reprieve. There was talk that you might see out the rest of your sentence here in the UK, but unfortunately for you, there is no specific law

against filling a sports stadium with hot cow shit. Well, there wasn't at the time. Now, I mean, it's terrifying to think that. I mean, now it actually would be illegal. Since his release from Brazilian prison, William has been working on a new business venture. He hopes to popularise the traditional English sport of hogball, a sport that actually doesn't involve a ball. It's quite complicated. I asked William to explain the game to me.

I mean, hogball goes back absolutely centuries, not necessarily its current form. Hogball was originally played with two teams of five and one witch. And all you had to do, you each had a pit, and it would be extremely deep, 40 or 50 feet, with a sort of eternal fire burning. And the players each had brooms, and you a point for um pushing a witch down the opposition's hole bring on a new witch carry on you know 40 minutes each way um that sort of just went out of fashion as things do there was a sort of groundswell of opinion against it uh you know the naysayers were listened to as is too often the case in this once great nation of ours however it came back and hogball now is played not with a witch instead now you have a pig and two teams of five uh the players are mounted on on cow back and they have very long sticks that

are i mean they're sort of like the length of a length of a standard sort of jousting staff with a kind of plunger on the end of it. And what they have to do is force a pig into an incredibly deep, quite narrow hole. 40 minutes each way, one referee in each half. So that would be the ideal setup, of course, for hog ball. But of course, sometimes, I don't know if it's animal rights issues, or a sport, it could be described as underground, maybe, because, as far as I can tell, it mainly seems to take place in pub car parks late at night. That's right, yes. More lorry, overnight lorry parks, yeah.

Right. And, you know, why aren't these games being played on the local common or somewhere more public in the daytime? Do you have something to be ashamed of um well not not personally no i think um there's just a sort of sadness that it's not being sort of embraced um as a sort of more mainstream opportunity you know if i go to my local park there are permanent football goals set up there are permanent uh rugby um goals uh put there are there permanently any very narrow but incredibly deep holes doug no uh it's just an obstacle that's been put in in the path of the

sport sadly but you know we fight on we fight on to win as as chukka romana said uh so we've had to take the game elsewhere i think if you say underground that's that's possibly a slightly emotive word to use if you don't mind me saying it makes it sound like it's illegal as a sport it is not this is what i wanted to ask you about because it's not it is not illegal as a sport well okay i know people say it is it is unlawful and there is a world of difference my friend between something being illegal and unlawful a A world of difference. Right. Well, I think we could talk all afternoon about the legal nuances. Well, I don't think we could.

I mean, it is currently unlawful, and that's it. It is not an illegal sport. Right. Of course, most of the damage that is done to public property as a result of hogball is damage done by the pig. And of course, legally, you cannot... There are very, very few crimes for which, in 2021, pigs can still be charged. William is correct. In the UK today, pigs can only be charged for murder, apple scrumping and

photocopying sheep music. For the sports detractors, it is the treatment of the pig, chased around a field by people on cowback, only to end up at the bottom of a deep hole that generates the most criticism. To get to the bottom of whether hogball is cruel to pigs, I spoke to friend of the show, former bovine arse vet Bob Triscothic, who, although an expert in bovine arses, knows his way around a pig. I started by asking Bob whether hog bull is cruel. Contrary to popular opinion amongst the layperson, the swine actually love it. Well, thanks, Bob. You know, coming from someone, well, you're not a qualified vet,

but someone who's certainly got experience in the veterinary world um that might put a lot of minds at rest because i think you can imagine how people might think it it's a terrible experience for a pig to be chased around by 10 people on cow back and eventually chased into a deep hole you can see how people might think that would be distressing well the chasing itself is terrific sport for the pig. Let's not forget that today's farmyard pig is descended from the wild boar, a very energetic, scampering beast with a set of its own face jousts. I see. Throughout the centuries, wild boar have always been a very playful

species. The games they play tend to involve a lot of rough and tumble. They involve the facial jousts. And the pig wants nothing more than to chase and to be chased and to prod and to be prodded. It's back to its most natural elemental state when it's playing hog ball. Oh, so you think that actually it's a link to its evolutionary past. And actually, would you go as far as to say that then the way that we keep pigs that you know them just sitting and wallowing and doing the things that we know they do is actually sort of against nature this is actually more natural in a way i think so and that's why danish bacon is so for so many years been so famously good because the danes will uh will allow the pigs to play into will encourage them to play and will set up tournaments for the pigs whereas

here they just they wallow wallow around and people have found repeatedly after a game of hog ball the the bacon is richer the pig milk is sweeter the pig is happier everybody's happier do you have experience yourself of of a hog ball game i've i've been many times as a spectator and i've been there as in my official capacity as a as a tournament vet on numerous occasions i must say i've never been to a live hog ball event it's normally a long time after my bedtime but uh i've watched a lot of footage on youtube usually kind of shaky camera phone footage obviously it's not yet a kind of televised sport what those videos don't show me is what happens to the pig once they're in the hole. Obviously, the pig goes in the hole,

the whole place goes crazy, all the spectators are, you know, throwing beer cans in the air and everyone's cheering, and then the video stops. And I think that, you know, when you watch that, you can't help but think,

okay, what next? Because this pig is down a very, very deep hole. Yes, well, and then again, this is why people get concerned because they're fundamentally ignorant. But again, this is something the pig enjoys immensely. Often the hole is slightly cushioned at the bottom with a little bit of slurry, so you literally have a pig in literal shit, having the time of its life. But even if it's a very dry hole, even if the players haven't remembered to pad the bottom,

the pig is a perfectly designed animal to fall down a deep hole. The snout of a pig is soft and padded. And if you drop a pig from any height, much like a cat will always land on its feet, a pig will always land on its face. In Buenos Aires in 1973, there was the famous pig table study, in which swines were pushed off tables of varying heights, everything from a coffee table to an airplane tray table of a plane in flight. And again, they always landed on their face. And just to be clear, if you're landing on your face from, let's say, the Empire State Building and you're a pig, that isn't fatal? It's never fatal because the snout is perfectly designed, a perfectly designed landing pad.

It's rubbery. It contains little air sacs within it. The air whistles through the nostrils and up into the lungs, creating a kind of parachute balloon effect. Some go through the bowels. If it's moving fast, it'll go through the bowels very quickly, through the anus, past the tail, which will whirl at incredible speed, acting like a rotor, which will slow the pig down. Like an actual helicopter? Yes, yes. I mean, it's never

enough to make the pig hover, but it will take the edge off the speed. So the pig will always have a very comfortable landing, and even if it ends up in a very narrow hole and isn't able to swill around in any muck again the snout is perfectly designed to get it out because there will be a build-up of air from the snout into the trapped space below the pig's lungs are very large and powerful and effectively their face acts like a harrier jump jet engine they will be able to propel themselves back up out of the hole using just the air in their lungs? When they are good and ready, yes. And sometimes the trouble is sometimes the pig is having such a wonderful time in the hole that it will take hours and even days. But when they come out, they come out like a cork out of a pop gun.

Great. Well, thanks, Bob, for clearing that up for us. That's really helpful. I hope things are going well with you. Are you still living on the North Sea coast there? Not on the coast per se. I did attempt to move on. I'm currently stranded on an abandoned oil rig in the North Sea. And are you able to earn any money? Able to eat? Food supplies-wise, I think there's enough tinned sweetcorn here to keep me going for a few weeks. The Wi-Fi connection is strong. Earnings-wise, struggling a bit there, trying to do a little bit of online erotic video work, which is keeping things in check for now. Great. Well, I'm sure we'll put a link to that in the show description if you've got a

sort of webcam site you're on. Yes, of course. Absolutely. It's www.askvettakesrequest.com. If you can imagine it, I can do it. £5 a video in 4K. Lovely. All right. Well, Bob, all the best. I'm sure we'll speak to you soon. Thank you. My pleasure. More after this. Are you hiring for spring? What type of role are you hiring for? Maybe you need to hire someone to wear many hats, which can be challenging. Or maybe it's taking forever to find someone who's a great fit for your company. That's where ZipRecruiter comes in. Whether you need to hire a civil engineer in New York or a mascot in Missouri, ZipRecruiter's technology finds people with the right experience for your job and invites them to apply. No wonder four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.

And now you can try it for free only at ZipRecruiter.com slash beef. Once again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash beef. William's ambitions for hogball are considerable, and he is currently seeking investment to create a professional Hogball League, which he hopes one day will rival the NFL or the English Premier League. After our interview, he sent me some audio that he had commissioned from a creative agency to give potential investors an idea of the kind of commercial hit that Hogball could be. Join us this Saturday for Super Saturday. Saturday. Unbelievable. be join us this saturday saturday for super saturday saturday unbelievable a pageant of

pig punting prowess that's sure to go down as one hefty helping of the hottest happenings in hogball history in a surefire showdown showcase of blistering beef and bacon brawls the pride of the hbl are coming out udders swinging and there's hog ball hell to pay. Pure porcine poetry, the ballet of the mallet. Yes, our biggest ever swine-slinging season is finally here, and when turf meets trotter, anything can and will happen. Oh, this truly is the succulent game. Brought to you live.

Live. In association with Hyundai. Hyundai. You won't miss a single nudge of the sow from the field of cow-powered conquest. That's hog ball! Every point, every poke, every thwack of the crackling. Now that is hog ball! Hear the cowbells,

smell the audio, and feel the thunder of hooves as the creme de la sport charge their battle cattle into the arena of proms. Anyone even attempting to claim that wasn't Hogball would in fact be falling woefully wide of the mark. It's Hogball heaven 24-7 and everyone's pig-vited. And Ozymandias, king of kings, looked upon his works and named them Hogball.

And rightly so. That's Super Saturday this Saturday. All Saturday. All the Saturday. Hobbs will crash. though. That's Super Saturday this Saturday. All Saturday. All the Saturday. Hogs will crash. I asked William whether his ambitions are realistic.

Well, it's an ambitious plan, but we think, you know, shit or get off the pot, as they say. We're going for it. We want to have basically 12, a league of 12. We are convinced that we can attract sponsorship. We're convinced we're going for it we want to have basically 12 a league of 12 we are convinced

that we can attract sponsorship we're convinced that we can attract stars we're convinced that we can recruit new players

we want to get some academy systems going we want to build our own stadiums I'd say the the Hogball League

HBL is probably as it stands looking to come into fruition around about 2024. That vision is obviously going to take a lot of money

to compete with the the other huge world sports. Have you got that sort of money? I can actually announce the first sponsor we've got on board is Hyundai.

Right, that's a big big company. Yes, they are putting some money into sponsoring the league as a whole, but they are the headline sponsors for the Mercia Snouts. That's the sort of big domestic team sort of west of England, that area, the whole Mercia region. Hyundai are on board

with them. Huawei are sponsoring one of the Scottish teams. We've had a lot of interest from the arms industry, which I welcome. And Salman Rushdie himself is going to sponsor one of the teams. I mean, that's a huge name to get involved. Well, yeah.

And I think that demonstrates, you know, just what it is we've, we're sitting on here, you know. Don't like to use words like gold mine, but, you know, hello. Salman Rushdie is obviously a great start. But it seems to me that, you know don't you like to use words like gold mine but uh you know hello someone rush is obviously a great start um but it seems to me that you know any new venture these days really needs the backing of celebrities to go anywhere do you have interest from anyone apart from you know obviously someone rush these are you know he's an a-lister of course but do you have anyone

else that can get people excited about hog ball as a brand this is growing all the time david dacovny uh for instance uh is extremely interested in uh hog ball he has absolutely uh hemorrhaged my uh inbox with uh questions about it how can he play it where can he play it is he allowed to start his own sort of californian hog ball league a lot of other people from 90s american uh shows are are heavily involved uh kelsey grammar is interested in investing in a in a hogball franchise um fred savage hillary from the fresh prince of bel-air loves hogball hogball is growing and it is going in one direction that direction is up. Right. Well, you know, if people are listening to this and they're thinking,

I want a piece of this pie, I believe you are currently looking for investors of all sizes. Why don't I give you 30 seconds now just to really pitch the idea of investing in this sport? Okay. Will you tell me when it starts? Okay. Three, two, one, you're off. Hog ball brings families together. Hog ball is about fresh air. Hog ball is about exercise.

Hog ball is about cows. Hog ball enables people to sit on the backs of cows and get up close to pigs. Hog ball enables you to push a pig down a hole. What is the future, people may ask you? The future is hog ball well that's very compelling william has to thank you so much for talking to me um if if listeners want to get involved is there a website or is there where can they find the information we are in the process of securing the hog ball domain name um that's as far as i'm preferred to go on it uh hog ball nl was gone hog ball de was gone Hogball DE was gone, Hogball TV was gone, we don't know how it's happening

we think possibly David Duchovny has got ahead of himself and started buying up the domain names and that's good, it's about growing the game, it's about creating more interests he recorded some jingles without even being asked, Hogball Hogball he is a very he's a very

big fan you know i i talked to him about it i said what is it you like about it he said it's just pure sport it's competitive and brings out the best in me it gets my adrenaline pumping that's just when i'm watching it a lot of people think oh that's that guy from the x-files but also i was in the film beethoven and i think that's fair enough. Well, William Hester, thank you very much. And well, I wish you all the best. Thank you very much indeed for having me on. And go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go Saturday! A top-flight tournament of titanic tussles for the Hogball Ages. This really is some of the most Hogball I've ever seen!

As the best of the best jostle and joust to get their Hogball gloves on the coveted Jules de Boerf Cup, there's fixture upon fixture upon fixture. City Castle Town versus Townchester City. North Liverpool versus North East Liverpool. Crystal Villa versus West Frottage Albion. Bombag United versus the Dulwich Mullards, Wolverhampton Wolf Police versus the Macclesfield Hoverpriests, Birmingham Shits versus Cardiff C**ts, and lest ye forget, the legendary Ipswich Botherers will go hoof-to-hoof with the indomitable Doncaster Dimblebees.

There's no love lost between Tottenham growth spurt and Jurassic Park Rangers, but when the might of Herculean hoghammerer Polly Pouch meets the legendary lancemanship of Wayne Gazza Lampard, only one triumphant team can possibly emerge smelling of anything but failure. This'll certainly separate the wheat from the boys! And with Duncan Donas, Zenith Carmichael and Ronaldo McDonaldo on the same pitch, there's sure to be a bare minimum of nothing less than fireworks. Let it never be said that victory doesn't taste of ham. Who will be promoted? Yes!

Full-face relegation. This cannot be happening! And who will remain within their allocated scoring band? Unless tied by a margin of no more than six frames or 13 birdies provided the total snout count after arbitration is equal to or greater than last season's overall points share when divided by half the mean average of all accumulated goals tries and or baskets across the previous season's corresponding leaderboard or equivalent that's jessica bath sheba passes to david dacovni jr riding maureen of course, straight past the hockey, nothing but net there, he's through silly mid-off, plants his poker in the onion bag and yes!

Ends in a near perfect Yachenko, textbook pas de deux. So don't miss Super Saturday. Super Saturday? Super Saturday. Tis a sporting event devoutly to be wished. Hog ball! In association with Hyundai. So, that's all we've got time for this month.

But if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to our website now, where you can read all the usual stuff, as well as our off-topic section, where this month we speak to 20 shepherds around the world about their views on the trend of power being devolved to local mayors in metro areas in European countries. Sure, it's working for Paris, but does what works for Paris necessarily make sense for Bremen? So, until next time, beef out.

thanks to miles jepp mike wozniak and greg johnson and i'd just like to plug greg's youtube channel i've been a big fan of greg's for ages and it was a real pleasure to get him to do something for the podcast and he wrote and made those excellent hog ball promos you can find him on twitter at greg which is spelled g-r-e-i-g greg a-r johnson and if you type his name into youtube you'll find all his sketches and and the one about food farms is really just the best sketch it's so up my alley and if you like beef and dairy it'll be up your alley as well so yeah look for his food farms sketch on youtube oh my god so yeah until next time ta-ta we are the host of my brother my brother me and now nearly 10 years into our podcast the secret can be revealed all the clues are in place and the world's greatest treasure hunt can now begin embedded in each episode of each episode of My Brother, My Brother and Me

is a micro clue that will lead you to 14 precious gemstones all around this big, beautiful, blue world of ours. So start combing through the episodes. Let's say starting at episode 101 on. Yeah, the early episodes are pretty problematic, so there's no clues in those episodes. No, no, not at all. The better ones, the good ones, clues ahoy.

Listen to every episode repeatedly in sequence. Laugh if you must, but mainly get all the great clues. My brother, my brother and me, it's an advice show, kind of, but a treasure hunt mainly. Anywhere you find podcasts or treasure maps. My brother, my brother and me, the hunt is on. Max Fun Drive 2021 is coming. It'll be May 3rd to May 14th. To get in the spirit,

we asked folks like you to let us know what Maximum Fun and our shows mean to them. You know, the Maximum Fun Network is really important to me because it is not just a collection of podcasts, but it is a lifestyle

and a value system. The podcasts frequently and deftly float between meaningful and irreverent, in one moment drawing attention to social issues and in another making dick jokes about Klingons. It shouldn't work, but it does. And I have to believe it's because Max Fun's podcasts are, at their core, thoughtful and kind and human during a time that has often felt cold and isolated.

So keep being great and doing what you do. MaxFunDrive will be May 3rd to May 14th, 2021. And you won't want to miss it. Brilliant apps, Drive-exclusive gifts, and maybe some surprises. Want to directly support the hosts of the show we just jumped into? Come back May 3rd for MaxFunDrive.