Roger Robson, un des plus anciens responsables de la Cumberland and Westmorland Wrestling, la fédération de lutte traditionnelle dans le nord de l'Angleterre, écrit pour la presse locale.

Voici son article sur le le championnat breton de Back-hold 2015 :

The year’s biggest event for Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling took place last week. Over a hundred and fifty wrestlers gathered to compete, not in the North of England, but in the city of Quimper in Brittany, North-Western France. The Breton International Backhold Championship was attended by wrestlers from Leon (Spain), Sardinia, Poland, Iceland, Scotland, England and the hosts, Brittany (they don’t like being referred to as France!), and the competitions were split into male/female, age and weight categories.

In the Sports Centre car park was a big bus from Rothbury, which had set out from home two days previously with a goodly contingent of wrestlers and supporters from Northumberland. Scots from Carnoustie and more supporters joined at Carlisle, and finally a Kendal contingent joined down the motorway.



The reason for the event and the Rothbury coach lie thirty years ago when Ted Dunglinson and I, and a few others responded to the overtures of the Gouren Federation in Brittany to set up the International Federation of Celtic Wrestling, and our form of wrestling became one of the two styles used regularly in the international competitions and so became part of the training regime of the Breton wrestlers.



Two of our present CWWA champions were unbeaten in Quimper and added to their titles: our Under 15 Years Champion, George Wilson of Kendal Academy, won the open weight (+68kg) for his age group; and Harry Bertram of Rothbury Academy, who won our Under 15 Years/8st Championship at Eskdale in 2014, conquered the biggest group of all the junior wrestling to win the 56kg category.



Thomas Davidson showed no adverse effect from his starring role in Robson Green’s “More Tales of Northumberland” to win the gold medal for the youngest age-group at 52kg. His co-star and dad, Jason, also came home with a medal when he gained a bronze in the Open Senior class.

In the female wrestling Freya Waddington struck gold, but her sparring partner, Lucy Singer, had to be content with silver.

In all, nine out of the fourteen travelling English wrestlers had podium positions and organiser, Darren Whitfield commented that, “All wrestlers competed valiantly and the success of the team saw them take a further award for the greatest number of points accumulated by a national team.”