Anyone would think I was some sort of marbles aficionado! Fresh from Battle Marbles, I hot footed it to the site of the "Marble Massacre" in 1932, when the Black Horse at Hookwood first captured the award. Since then the competition has always been staged on Good Friday at the Greyhound pub in Tinsley Green. Over 50 teams attend and the event even attracts sponsorship from "Bombardier Beer" and television coverage from Sky.

Anyone would think I was some sort of marbles aficionado! Fresh from Battle Marbles, I hot footed it to the site of the "Marble Massacre" in 1932, when the Black Horse at Hookwood first captured the award. Since then the competition has always been staged on Good Friday at the Greyhound pub in Tinsley Green. Over 50 teams attend and the event even attracts sponsorship from "Bombardier Beer" and television coverage from Sky.

Just how I got to Hebden Bridge is a long story, but on my arrival a lovely lady at the Hebden Bridge Tourist Office informed me that the race had yet to start and that if I was quick, Tonsley Events might even be able to enter as the ducks had yet to be released and a competitor could still be purchased. Having run to the start, I bought a plastic duck, gave it the same advice that my father had given me just before I swam the 100 metre crawl at school for the first time (namely to kick like hell!) and without further ado threw it in the refuse bin marked "Competitors". What a way to prepare for the big race, poor thing!

Bizarre! The sport was invented by the drinking regulars at the Ye Olde Royal Oak in 1974, in response to another poor British sporting summer. With the game originally only being played by the inhabitants of Wetton, regulars were particularly pleased with themselves as at last here was a game that the British were likely to dominate.

All this was to change however in 1977, when a one regular invited a visiting Canadian friend to enter. True to form, the Canadian promptly won, disappeared off home with the trophy and the pub decided to stop playing! Fortunately when the pub changed hands in 1990, the new landlord decided to resurrect the game and now it is open to competitors throughout the world.

In 1997, the sport first applied for Olympic recognition (which was declined), while soon after the Japanese were granted a licence to stage the first non UK national games.

What yet to be explained part of a human being's brain manages to link the pastime of mountain biking with the location of an old peat bog in the middle of the Brecon Beacons? And why decide that the peat bog should be 8 feet deep and full of water?

Riders start on dry land (well dry bog), position themselves on the bike and then cycle at speed into the trench. As they start to become submerged so the need for both the face mask and snorkel becomes apparent. Once in, and this is all against the clock, they have to navigate themselves down the bog, around a white post at the far end and then return back to the starting point. The person who does it quickest is deemed the winner.

Amid the heady mix of the nationalistic pride that the Queen's golden jubilee, the town of Tetbury ground to standstill as anticipation grew ahead of the 2002 running of the famous "Woolsack Race". In essence, the race is very straightforward. Teams (made up either of 2 or 4 people) race against each other between two pubs, however the topography of the course (the hill has a gradient of 1 in 4) and the weight of the Woolsack (60 lbs) make it "somewhat" harder than it seems.

EVENT VOID under Rule 11 - Joe entered the same event!