And who hasn’t speculated that the stones make perfect goals, well perhaps we weren’t wrong after all and Stonehenge really did host the first football match.
We’ve come a long way, of course, since the old slabs of stone were put up in the west of England.
And each generation has added to the legend of Stonehenge by putting their own spin on it.
The latest comes from Win Scutt, who oversees Stonehenge for English Heritage.
And he believes our prehistorians ancestors held sporting gatherings there some 4,500 years ago.
To go along with the religious or ceremonial occasions, giving tribute to the elements and praying for nature’s rewards.
Greece is the word
Now Winn references the Classic Greeks, always makes you come across as knowledgeable,.
He says: ‘I think there were probably games, just like the Panhellenic Games.’
But despite being a prehistoric nerd, he seems steeped too in the modern world.
As he proffers that our forbears might have been participating in a reality TV type contest.
‘I think there might have been a sport in getting these stones here,’ he said.
‘Teams of people, a bit of competition, a challenge.’
Cursus games
With the wind in his sails by now.
Awith historian Dan Snow on his tail for his TV docu Stonehenge: The Discovery with Dan Snow, he lets loose.
‘With the Stonehenge Cursus (circle), I think we should at least consider that this was not simply a route or a boundary,’ he added.
‘It may have been a place of gathering, display, movement and performance, perhaps even competition.’
The next goal
All of which tempts us to pay another visit to the old stones.
We are, of course, a little blase about standing stones (one of the old father-in-law’s fave days out).
With the Callanish Stones in Lewis and the Orcadian Ring of Brodgar up here in Scotland.
While the older Avebury standing stones, near to where my own Druid goddess was raised in Berkshire is our New Age go-to site when we head to her relatives.
But we’ll promise ourselves now to hang a turn to the Stonehenge Visitor Centre and of course I always have a football in the boot of the car just in case.
