♪
Good evening. I'm Helen Mirren.
And you're watching "Documentary Now!" Season 53.
In a small Welsh village, two men enter a ring.
But instead of doing battle with their fists,
they throw stones at each other.
And actually, it's not a ring, it's a sheep pen.
I give you the 1996 classic sports documentary
"How They Threw Rocks."
[ Laughter ]
[ Indistinct conversation ]
[ Singing in Welsh ]
♪
[ Welsh accent ] Yes, I'm back.
Others tell me I've changed, but I haven't.
I'm still the champ, and I don't take too well
to somebody going around saying otherwise.
[ Singing continues ]
[ Chuckles ]
[ Crowd cheering ]
Bring a smile to your face.
♪
Now, I know what you've all been saying, lads and ladies.
He's bigger than me. He's younger than me.
And yet not one of you have said
he's better-looking than me.
So at least on that count, I know you're being honest.
Announcer: He's the hero, and he's the man!
He's the one they've come to see.
♪
Reporter: Do you have a girlfriend, Sior?
[ Welsh accent ] Do I have a girlfriend?
A gentleman never -- what's the expression?
A gentleman never has a girlfriend.
You say he's big. You say he's mean.
But I'm the hottest shot you've ever seen.
Announcer: He's certainly not the people's favorite.
"Get your hair cut," the crowd say.
♪
Man: Olly!Group: Oi!
Olly!Oi!
Olly! Olly! Olly!Oi! Oi! Oi!
♪
They thought he was burnt out and pastured.
They thought he was way too old.
But this here, lads, it's people's champ.
He was about to weave gold
[ Birds chirping, sheep bleating ]
[ Speaking Welsh ]
There she is. I wouldn't be what I am without her.
Formidable, but I'll tell you what.
One tough cookie.
You have a cross word with Ma Lewis-Ifans,
be prepared for anything up to and including single combat.
I can tell you.
Love her.
Alwyn Lewis-Ifans was the most charismatic, skillful,
and brutal craig maes fighter that I have ever seen.
[ Crowd shouting, applauding ]
Announcer: It's an absolute bloodbath
as Lewis-Ifans and Rhys-Thomas
go back and forth, back and forth!
Teale-Griffith: Craig maes, or "field rock,"
is a sport unique to the Welsh village Llagoelwyn on Wrst,
in which two men enter a sheep pen divided in half.
Each fighter has a pile of rocks,
a pile they have personally collected
from the surrounding field.
And during each three-minute round,
they take these rocks
and hurl them at one another...[ Crowd shouting ]
...with great force.
Announcer: Down goes Rhys-Thomas!
Down goes Rhys-Thomas![ Bell rings ]
Allie, as he was known locally, was a folk hero in Llagoelwyn.
Announcer: Oh, there's an Allie Whirlie!
Teale-Griffith: He'd won the Golden Stones as an amateur
and then went pro at 17.
And when he announced
he was going to attempt to win back his title
in his hometown of Llagoelwyn on Wrst --
in his first fight in over five years, no less --
well, it was a national event.
[ Mid-tempo music plays ]
♪
Teale-Griffith: These people, this town, they loved Allie
because they believed he fought for them.
Davies-Gruffudd: The problem was
Allie had never fought anyone like Sior Strawboss.
[ Mid-tempo music plays ]
Strawboss didn't dance. He didn't strategize.
He simply threw a rock harder than anyone on earth.
[ Bell rings, crowd cheering ]
Strawboss: Yes!
Teale-Griffith: I once wrote, "When Strawboss strikes
another man with a stone, even God winces."
I was quite pleased with that one.
Davies-Gruffudd: There was a feeling amongst many of us
that this fight for Allie was a mistake.
Man: Are you worried, Allie?Am I worried?
No, I'm not worried at all.
Aye, Sior Strawboss is a nasty character,
but let's not forget, now, lads, I've just come out of prison.
And, uh, next to the boys I spent the last five years with,
Strawboss is as timid as your dear old aunt.
[ Laughter ]Not your Aunt Dorissa.
I wouldn't want to scuffle with her.
How's she doing? She all right?
Man: She's good now.Lovely.
Davies-Gruffudd: You see, they didn't just love him
as a fighter.
They loved him because in their minds
he had gone to prison for them --
which one could argue he had.
Turner: There were a lot of sheep stolen
up and down the valley in the spring of 1969.
So we set up a sting operation and caught Die John red-handed.
Well, the problem was Die John's father was Tom the Milk,
chairman of the farmers union.
There wasn't much more of a powerful man in the valley
than Tom the Milk.
So he pulled a few strings, and he got Die off
with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
Well, of course, Allie was having none of it.
Do we not pay our taxes?Group: Yeah!
Do we not deserve protection?Group: Yeah!
Now, I'm no vigilante, but I won't stand by and do nothing.
The farmers of this village are like family to me.
And you don't want to see what happens
when you steal from my family.
Would you steal a car?Group: No!
Would you steal a child?Group: No!
It's the exact same thing! You would not steal a sheep!
That farmer wakes up in the morning, he's a sheep shy.
He has lost a child.
Or that sheep wakes up, doesn't know where it is.
It's full-on emigrated.
It goes to the other sheep, "Oh, hello."
They go, "Sorry. No, you're a mountain sheep.
We're sheep sheep." "Well, but --"
"No, you're a mountain sheep. We're sheep sheep."
Now, all of a sudden, you've got a mountain sheep
in a sheep sheep pen confused, lonely, scared, traumatized.
Now, you think about that!Group: Yeah!
I know why he did what he did.
In many ways, I wish I'd done it myself.
Judge: Now, I want to make clear
that whilst you have not been prosecuted for sheep theft,
you arebanned from ever entering this village again.
Have you anything to say?
I wouldn't step foot in this filthy town again if I --Man: He's got a rock!
Don't you say another word, you louse!
You keep your filthy mouth shut!
[ Indistinct shouting ]
An arrest tonight,
where craig maes champion Alwyn Lewis-Ifans
has been accused of putting a sheep thief in a coma by --
no surprises here -- hitting him on the head with a rock.
Turner: Allie was at the peak of his craig maes career
but was willing to throw it all away in the name of justice.
Forgive them, Mum, for they know not what they do.
It should have been me.
Yet I was the man who had to arrest him.
Sorry.
There was no avoiding jail after that.
Five years.
And so yes, he came out older, slower, and thicker.
But the people loved him
more than they'd ever loved him before.
[ Crowd cheering ]
How do you feel about fighting an ex-convict, Sior?
He may have just got out of jail,
but after the fight, he'll want to go back in jail --
where I can't get to him, see?
'Cause of the jail bars.
If it was a battle of verbosity,
Allie wasn't going to have any trouble.
But, you see, it wasn't.
And to see Strawboss train
was to doubt he could ever be bested.
Man: Here's the one![ Grunts ]
[ Men cheering, applauding ]
And that's, of course, when I coined the name
the fight would forever be known as --
"The Melon Versus the Felon."
Davies-Gruffudd: Well, I didn't care for it.
Yes, Allie was a felon.
But Sior wasn't a melon.
He threw rocks at melons.
I suppose it should have been
"The Felon Versus the Man Who Throw Rocks at Melons."
And I told that to anyone who'd listen.
Well, he was jealous, wasn't he?
No one liked his name for the fight.
I wanted to call it "The Quarrel at the Corral."
I mean, it's all well and good,
but that's not how you pronounce "corral."
You can't just change the word to make it rhyme with "quarrel."
You simply can't.
I mean, it's -- it's like saying "sqaurrel" for "squirrel."
Lewis-Ifans: I'm in a bit of a foul mood today, ladies and gentlemen.
I went down to the grocer to buy some melon, and they'd run out.
Apparently, my opponent's been using them as sparring partners.
[ Laughter ]
It's funny, really.
He's training with fruit,
and it's my intention to turn him into a vegetable.
[ Laughter ]Davies-Gruffudd: His wit was as sharp as ever.
But there were worrying signs as to his fitness.
Okay. Enough.
Locals stopped by every day
bringing him food both sweet and savory.
Time for me to take my medicine.
Davies-Gruffudd: Welsh cakes, pasties, sausage rolls.
I never saw him turn one down.
He was heavier, which is problematic for a fighter
whose style was to be elusive.
He would go for runs,
and the children in the town would run along with him.
But after a while, the children would pass him.
And then he'd try to catch up with them,
and he wouldn't be able to.
He'd laugh as though he were pretending.
But, uh, you could tell he was deeply unfit.
[ Mid-tempo music plays ]
♪
Davies-Gruffudd: He was drinking too much, eating too much.
More troubling than that was the gambling.
We'd only see the small stuff,
like "How many cashew nuts are there in the jar?"
...445...
446...
[ Men groaning ]
You've only been counting the halves, Jan, haven't you?
I never claimed counting was my strong point, gents.
Count it, Godwin.
Davies-Gruffudd: He just loved to wager
on how many of a thing was in any given place.
Man: ...80, 81,
82 sheep in the field!
Aw! Allie.
I could've sworn there were 100.
Davies-Gruffudd: This was when the whispers started
that Allie was deeply in debt to his bookmakers,
and people began to worry that the fight might be fixed.
[ Up-tempo music plays ]
Teale-Griffith: Now, the day before the fight
is the collection.
From sunup to sundown,
each fighter is allowed to gather
as many stones as they can for their match pile.
Sior was single-minded that day.
He walked through the field with purpose,
picking up every stone he lay eyes on.
He built an opening pile more impressive than I'd ever seen.
Allie, on the other hand, seemed distracted,
as if his mind were somewhere else.
In fact, I wrote,
"He had the air of a man looking for a dropped wedding ring
he wasn't sure he wanted to find."
[ Chuckles softly ]
I liked that one quite a bit.
...516, 517...Davies-Gruffudd: In a normal match,
each fighter collects about the same number of rocks.
...519.
That was not the case on this day.
...35, 36, 37.
Strawboss 519, Lewis-Ifans 37.
Lewis-Ifans: Remember, though, lads.
It's not about the number of rocks you've got.
It's how you throw them.
I don't imagine I'd need more than 10 to get the job done.
And, uh, well, I'll pass the rest out as souvenirs.
[ Chuckles ]
Larger in person than what I thought he'd be.
You seen him?[ Whispering indistinctly ]
You fucking told me.
[ Dramatic music plays ]
♪
[ Crowd cheering, announcer speaking indistinctly ]
Announcer: ...for the big event of the afternoon.
Entering the pen is Alwyn Lewis-Ifans
and Sior Strawboss.
Group: [ Chanting ] Alwyn! Alwyn!
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, let's join together
and sing our national anthem.
[ Group singing "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" ]
♪
Davies-Gruffudd: There is nothing
quite like the tension you feel
before the opening bell rings in a craig maes match.
And never more so than on that day.
Teale-Griffith: You couldn't believe Allie had a chance.
Referee: Okay. Let's have a fair match here.
Teale-Griffith: But to see that smile
was to think... "Maybe he cando it."
Announcer: Once those shirts are coming off,
that shows that these lads mean business.
Seconds away, then, from the start.
Olly! Olly! Olly!Group: Oi! Oi! Oi!
Olly!Oi!
Olly! Olly! Olly!Oi! Oi! Oi!
[ Chanting ] Alwyn! Alwyn! Alwyn! Alwyn!
Davies-Gruffudd: Allie had told us he would dance.
He showed us howhe would dance.
And yet at the opening bell, he grabbed his largest rock
and went for the kill!
[ Bell rings ]Announcer: The bell has gone.
There goes Allie!
Oh, it's Allie with a Whirlie!
And yet Strawboss didn't blink.
[ Crowd shouting ]
Davies-Gruffudd: And in that first round,
Allie just unloaded on him, rock after rock after rock.
Strawboss didn't move until right before the bell rang.
Announcer: Oh! That must have hurt!
[ Bell ringing ]
Teale-Griffith: In fact, when the round ended,
Strawboss just glared, as if to say,
"If that was your best, it wasn't enough."
And I turned to Garth, and I remember I said,
"Strawboss is the nail that cracked the hammer."
And I'll never forget what Garth said to me.
He said, "Owen, that's enough."
Bloody typical of him
to remember all these years, isn't it?
Andto bring it up in public.
Yes.
Man: He's not used to this.
Teale-Griffith: He drank a pint of bitter,
which wasn't uncommon for him between rounds.
But then he also gestured for a scotch.
Davies-Gruffudd: His eyes betrayed a man
who knew he had met his match.
[ Crowd cheering ]
[ Bell ringing ]Announcer: Here we go, then. Next round.
Will we see a little bit more from Alwyn?
Teale-Griffith: And when the next round started,
he adopted the turtle.
Announcer: My goodness. What's going on here?
[ Rock thuds ]Oh, my goodness!
He's standing there like a turtle!
Turtling is a craig maes technique
where the fighter turns his back to his opponent
to protect his head and face.
Now, it is useful to avoid a knockout
if the fight is winding down
and you think you might win by decision.
But to do it this early in a fight
against someone like Strawboss was suicide.
The way Allie hung there, like a rag doll,
you thought he might be dead.
Announcer: What on earth is going on?
What is happening?
And yet he would turn and taunt Strawboss.
[ Shouting indistinctly ]
Davies-Gruffudd: He'd say, "Are you still here?
I thought you had left."
And this enraged Strawboss,
who kept throwing harder and harder.
[ Bell rings ]
Meanwhile, the pen was getting smaller and smaller.
Announcer: Once again, they, uh, narrow the arena,
giving the guys less room.[ Bell rings ]
Out they come, then, for round 3.
The crowd will be expecting a little bit more from Allie.
Davies-Gruffudd: The next two rounds, it was the same thing --
Allie just getting punished by Strawboss.
It was almost masochistic.
[ Grunts ]Announcer: Oh! That caught him!
He's taking all the punishment!
I mean, it really was impressive that he hadn't gone down
but so deeply sad that it was going to end this way --
a champion, well, basically conceding
that he had no way to win.
Announcer: The crowd, they're stunned, they're surprised.
This is not the Allie they know and love.
Group: [ Chanting ] Alwyn! Alwyn! Alwyn! Alwyn!
And then...he recited a poem.
Teale-Griffith: "And Father Time will knock at my door.
Yet he shall not find me there.
Look as he may in every room
'neath floorboard and under stair."
[ Woman singing in Welsh ]
"For I will have left a day before
to spare myself his embrace.
♪
In a field alone, I'll find my stone...
♪
...and look it in the face."
♪
When he finished, I turned to Garth, and I said,
"It's not a poem.
It's an elegy."
And I said, "Shut the fuck up, will you?
Just for once, shut the fuck up,
watch what's happening, and don't comment on it!"
Yes, it hurt my feelings.
Hurt them very much.
No one likes to be snapped at.
Announcer: The crowd not losing their passion for Allie.
They're still 100% behind him.
[ Bell rings ]
Here we go, then! Next round!
[ Crowd cheering ]
♪
Crowd: Oh!
Announcer: Strawboss can't understand
why he's not throwing back.
Strawboss starting to lose a little bit of energy now.
He's slowing down. He's not throwing fast.
He's not throwing hard.
He is really looking exhausted.
Oh, my goodness! He's only got one left!
Nothing more than a pebble left!
What damage can he do with this one?
Oh!
So -- Oh, my goodness!
Allie has come alive!
Allie has come alive![ Rock thuds ]
Look at this! Look at the speed!
He's throwing!
Oh, look at him go!
He's got Strawboss going back on the heel!
He's throwing!
What a speed -- Oh!
Maybe it was just a tactic!
Look at this![ Bell rings ]
Allie has done it![ Crowd cheering ]
He's done the impossible!
The crowd go wild!
Allie has done it!
Teale-Griffith: In craig maes, you throw rocks from your pile.
When your pile is gone,
you can throw the rocks your opponent has thrown at you.
But if your opponent hasn't thrown any rocks,
when you're out...you're out.
Allie knew exactly how many rocks Sior had.
And each time Sior bounced one off his back,
Allie subtracted it.
Teale-Griffith: To be able to keep track
in the heat of a match requires the sharpest of minds.
And, of course, Allie had spent months
making everyone think he couldn't count.
[ Down-tempo music plays ]
[ Crowd cheering ]
Davies-Gruffudd: After the knockout,
Allie stepped over the midline and lifted Sior to his feet.
It was an incredible act of sportsmanship.
And also an immediate disqualification
per the rules of craig maes.
Announcer: He's crossed the line!
He's gonna have to be disqualified!
Why would he do that?
Teale-Griffith: In the weeks that followed, it was discovered
that Allie had indeed arranged to throw the fight.
But his pride got the better of him.
So, that was --
Well, it was really his only choice.
That or having his legs broken by gangsters.
Oh, people in town lost their shirts.
But they were so proud of him for how he'd fought
that none of them cared.
Turner: There was a trial for match fixing.
The judge found him guilty, and he sentenced him to 20 years.
I'll tell you a story. He sat in his local pub.
[ Laughs ]
There weren't all smiles that afternoon,
for every face had held a frown.
But in a moment, all would change
for the people of that town.
For their conquering hero would return
to regain his golden crown.
'Twas the day that Allie knocked Sior Strawboss...
What?
I love him, but he's fucking useless.
[ Laughter ]
[ Group singing in Welsh ]
♪
[ Tempo increases, hands clapping ]
♪
[ Singing slows, ends ]
[ Cheers and applause ]