Grasmere Sports is Striding Back to its Farming Roots

Grasmere Lakeland Sports and show is making great strides to return its traditional Lake District event to its long-established roots, by forging new and vibrant relationships with Cumbria Young Farmers.

The committee is actively promoting what it can offer to an organisation that has around 1700 members, in a 10-28-year-old age bracket, and which empowers these young people, within their rural communities, to achieve their personal bests.

That personal best can most definitely be in a sporting event at the show, which has long attracted members of the farming community and transformed them into winners.

In its very early days, over 170 years ago, the show began life as a sheep show.  Its earliest events were a means of farmers to compete against each other and achieve bragging rights, whether that was through Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling bouts or hard-fought fell races.

Hound trailing – another huge tradition helped kept alive at Grasmere Sports – was another way in which local farming rivalries played out, as farmers took their best dog to the fell and encouraged it home.

To encourage members of Cumbria Young Farmers to get involved with the sporting challenges on offer at Grasmere Sports in similar ways, the committee has attended CYF meetings in both the north and south of the county and Field Days.  

It has also provided specific financial support to two CYF clubs – Broughton in Furness and Crook.  This has helped these clubs to achieve some of their own charity fundraising goals, as the young farmers have come together to assist good causes or those close to their heart.

Grasmere Lakeland Sports and Shows committee wants to go further than that, however.  It has a vision of making its sports and meeting facilities, available all-year-round at its sports field, a hub for bringing the Northern and Southern Districts together for meetings and sporting events.

With 14 acres of land at its disposal, Grasmere Lakeland Sports and Show can offer the CYF an ‘arena’ in which all manner of events could take place, whenever the Cumbria-wide network of clubs wishes to join together or one branch hold a gathering requiring space and facilities.

For this year, the Show is hoping that the CYF will take up the offer of a free trade stand and promote its work with the county’s rural young people to a wider audience.  It would also love to see CYF members throwing themselves into the traditional Tug O’War event and taking up the opportunity to practice for this in advance.

Those wishing to add to their CV can also take up volunteering opportunities and become part of the organisation behind the event, learning new skills such as communication, teamwork, administration and problem-solving.

The Grasmere Sports committee is keen to see young people from farming families becoming the heartbeat of the event, taking it forward through participation and even record-breaking, as has been the case with their forefathers.

With so many opportunities open to them, there is a chance to do different things and flourish, as well as making new friends and extending their in-county network.

In the heyday of the show, charabancs would transport farming families from across the county and arrive at the showground, to give all involved a fantastic day out.  The modes of transport may be different these days but the traditional character of the show has not changed and the opportunity for farming families to celebrate their rural lives at the showground is just the same.

The events also provide a great opportunity for CYF clubs to have members enter and generate sponsorship around their sporting achievements, whether that is in a fell race or a track and field event, or by entering the wrestling and striving to get beyond the first round, as a first-time competitor.

Committee member, Mark Jackson, who is leading the campaign to take Grasmere Sports back to its farming roots and to breathe new life into the very essence of the event, says: “Our connection with Cumbria Young Farmers Clubs and the Sports and Show is our way of sustaining and strengthening our roots in the agricultural community across our county. This connection will become stronger over the coming years as we create mutually beneficial opportunities for young people, and specifically Young Farmers, to play an active role in the Sports.  These opportunities will be available on the Sports Day itself but also throughout the year, through our provision of access to the facilities at the sports field.

“We shall continue to support young people in our county, by providing them with opportunities to participate in traditional Lakeland Sports and activities and support their development through the use of the assets that we have available to us.”

Ends

Editors notes

Grasmere Lakeland Sports and Show is an iconic event taking place in the heart of the English Lake District on the August Bank Holiday weekend. Its long historic roots date back to 1868 and it is renowned for its fell running, hound trails and Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling competitions, as well as being a fantastic family day out.