Cumberland wrestling round-up

By Roger Robson

Jason Davison was one of the competitors in action

Once again Cumbrian wrestlers have been representing the noble sport on foreign soil.

Craig Naylor of Wasdale and James Oliver of Jedburgh, fresh from a week at a training camp in Central Brittany last week, were joined by twenty other wrestlers from the North of England who travelled to take part in the Brittany Backhold Championships at Guipavas, near Brest in France.

They joined wrestlers from Cantabria in Spain, Friesland in the Netherlands, Scotland and Tunisia, as well as a host of competitors from all over Brittany in 138-strong field.

The numbers were so great, that even with three mats in action simultaneously, that the open competitions which usually conclude the programme were cancelled.

No fewer than 10 Cumbrian wrestlers came home with championship medals.

Our wrestlers are used to wrestling a wide range of weights and ages of, but the Breton system categorises age and weight to ensure that all bouts are well matched.

This, of course, is a desirable, but often the wrestlers had few opponents.

The most spectacular instance of this was when James Hayhurst was the only wrestler in his section.

He had travelled a long way to have a walkover, so the organisers matched him with a Breton competitor from an older age group.

Hayhurst lost the first fall but woke up to wrestle at his best, taking three tightly fought bouts in row.

The biggest and best performance came from a Northumbrian wrestler who won the All Weights Championship in 1992, but has wrestled only rarely in the last ten years.

Duncan 'Crazy Horse' Hutton returned to international recognition when he won the biggest and heaviest group of all, the Senior Open Weight.

With ten wrestlers in contention, there were two pools of five where everyone wrestled everyone else, best of five falls.

The top two from each pool then went forward to the cross-ties, or semi-final, at which point Jason Davidson was eliminated by John Hirsch of Dundee with the leg-up buttock.

This meant that Hirsch and Hutton met in the final where Hutton prevailed mainly with the back-heel.

At the repas, the big meal after the event, Hutton was forced to stand in the midst of all the tables and people, for it was his 40th birthday, while 'Happy Birthday' or its equivalent was sung in English, Breton, French, Friesian, Spanish, and Tunisian.

In the under-21 Open Weight, four of our wrestlers took all the places, with Andrew Ord felling Ross Wilkinson in the final.

Another all-English final was in the open weight under-15 Years, when Jimmy Hall of Milnthorpe Academy felled William Hayhurst.

Meanwhile, at home, the new wrestling class at William Howard School, Brampton, got off to a good start with some promising performances from the teenagers who came to sample our local traditional wrestling.

The class meets each Tuesday from 1900, with Alan Jones as coach.

Results:

Brittany Backhold Championships

Girl winners:

56kg - C Hodgson

62kg - H Hodgson

Male Winners:

Under 13 Years

52+kg - J Hayhurst.

Under 15 Years

56kg - B Brocklebank

68+kg - J Hall