After a three-year hiatus, the World Gravy Wrestling Championships made its comeback in Lancashire on Sunday (August 29). The traditional Bank Holiday celebration of the Sunday tea staple - and hand-to-hand combat - had been absent from the region's calendar due to coronavirus.
Two years of the pandemic had delayed the 12th year of “one of the world’s craziest culinary competitions," held in Rossendale. There were huge queues down Stacksteads' Newchurch Road as the Rose 'n' Bowl pub threw open its doors shortly after lunch.
Competitors were ready and waiting to do battle in a huge vat of the brown stuff - grappling for two minutes to be marked on wrestling ability, fancy dress and the entertainment it brought the crowd. Taking part in the event, which was raising funds for East Lancashire Hospice, was LancsLive's own Rebecca Lockwood.
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Dressed head-to-toe in Greggs Primark gear, she did battle with a T-rex in the first round. She sailed through to the second, where a controversial technicality saw her ejected from the competition.
The now world-famous event - which has its own entry in the Guinness Book of World Records - started in the pub car park just over a decade ago. Since then it has grown in popularity. This year, 30 men and ten women took part, reports LancsLive.
Carol Lowe, 50, restaurant manager at the Rose ‘n’ Bowl said: “It’s amazing to be back and people have come from far and wide … the atmosphere is absolutely bouncing. Basically, people come in fancy dress – men and ladies – and then they wrestle in gravy and get eliminated as the day goes on.."
The organiser, who has worked in the Rose 'n' Bowl since she was 17, added: "It’s very messy.” In one of the early rounds, in the men's competition, a wrestler was almost completely disrobed.
While another, dressed in nothing more than 28 pairs of underpants, failed to make it through the qualifying round. Among other competitors, Ms Lowe counted “two half-naked gents in gold shorts rolling around in the gravy”, while other eye-catching outfits included a clown, a nun and a security guard.
Ahead of the main event, a boxing match was held in the ring, which Ms Lowe admitted was “quite smelly”. The gravy used in the event is made at the Real Lancashire Black Pudding factory and wrestlers are hosed down by the local fire brigade after their fights.
Asked if anyone would be putting the gravy on their Sunday roast after the event is finished, Ms Lowe said: “Definitely not, no. It’s all cleaned up and washed away.”
Ms Lowe said the success of the event is down to “so many people” who work to organise it. As well as the 2,000 litres of gravy she'd stockpiled to keep the contest flowing throughout the afternoon.
Now begins what Carol says is a two-day clean-up operation.
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