Does Your Home Town Have Any Bizzare Annual Sporting Events Or Other?

[Cletus Van Damme]

Where I was born Workington, West Cumbria, has this mental annual game that I believe has a game every day for 4 days. It's called The Uppies and Downies. It's being going on for over a hundred years. Basically its just a massive brawl, loosely based on rugby as far as I can see. It's from 2 rival areas of town, and the game starts in a midpoint between the two, I would estimate that the total length of the play area is about a mile and half, but they can end up anywhere. On this particular year they ended up in the town centre. It's just to try and get a leather kind of ball back to the base point of either the uppies or downies (The Harbour or The Castle), by whatever means possible.

The authorites have tried to stop it, with all the health and safety blah blah. But they can't, it just happens. I've never participated and have no desire to (too old now). I've watched before, and it was one of the most mental things I've ever watched. I don't live there anymore, but it's certainly something different, the other places I lived at, I can't recall anything like this going on..

I just wondered is this the only town/village/city that has some crazy event, or does yours have something similar/different etc?

 

[MontyVeda]

competing to be the biggest moaner about students seems to be an all year round event on the local FB group... does that count?

 

[Grant Fondo]

The Chester 1403 ruling that you can shoot a Welshman with a longbow on a Sunday is actually not true. I am not saying anything.

 

[snorri]

Sounds like the Kirkwall Ba' Games held annually at the festive season, but they call the teams Uppies and Doonies there.

 

[Drago]

I don't have a home town - I was born in the boonies and live in another bit of the boonies.

The closest fit is the world conker championships, held about 30 miles from here.

The Chester 1403 ruling that you can shoot a Welshman with a longbow on a Sunday is actually not true. I am not saying anything.

It's a bit bleedin'late to tell me that now!

 

[Julia9054]

Knaresborough Bed Race.
Teams of 6 runners decorate a bed on wheels in accordance with that year‘s theme. They parade through the town and are given prizes for best decorated bed.
At the end of the parade, the decorations are stripped and the bed is raced along a 2 mile course by the 6 runners with a small person sitting on the bed. The course includes swimming it through the river.
The town is completely bonkers for the day and teams can be seen practicing the course for up to 6 weeks before depending how seriously they are taking it

 

[Ian H]

Further down the valley at Ottery, there is the annual Tar Barrels event. It's debatable whether it counts as 'sporting'.

 

[sleuthey]

Yes:

 

[lazybloke]

I had a great laugh doing a pram race as a kid. Used to be an annual fancy event- complete with fancy dress- but died out decades ago. Might have to look for pics\stories in the Dorking Advertiser archives...

 

[Salty seadog]

I don't have a home town - I was born in the boonies and live in another bit of the boonies.

The closest fit is the world conker championships, held about 30 miles from here.



It's a bit bleedin'late to tell me that now!

The reason Manston airport has never been a success.

 

[presta]

Not here, but there's the Maldon Mud Race 14m down the road:
https://maldonmudrace.com/gallery

At Dunmow 10m away there's the Dunmow Flitch, which is a side of bacon awarded to a married couple who have gone a whole year without arguing:
https://www.dunmowflitchtrials.co.uk/

 

[DCLane]

Just near me there's the World Coal Carrying Championships: http://www.gawthorpemaypole.org.uk/?page_id=21

Held on Easter Monday it's the 13th of April this year. A friend of ours won the women's two year's running after she was coaxed into entering on the day. My son was 2nd in the U18 one a few years ago.

 

[classic33]

I don't have a home town - I was born in the boonies and live in another bit of the boonies.

The closest fit is the world conker championships, held about 30 miles from here.



It's a bit bleedin'late to tell me that now!

This only 1333 though.

 

[numbnuts]

 

[HMS_Dave]

I live close to Cannock Chase, so we don't have a lot of annual events outside of village days, although many including Stan Collymore likes to frequent in nightly excursions to local car parks to partake in local group activities and observation sessions. Not sure what they get up to, but every time i drive past to get his autograph, the car windows are all steamed up so i can't tell who is in there, they just seem to flash their lights at me. I assume im invading their privacy and want me to leave, so i do... I suppose it does look a bit odd, a bloke turning up with a pen and a picture of Stan looking around suspiciously at other cars in the dead of night...