by Toby Litt
Roger and Jill had offered to put me up, to drive me around and to be my guides, to feed me and explain what was going on. That whole week, my biggest expense turned out to be keeping them in ice-creams.
Staying overnight in their spare bedroom, with the Belted Galloways outside the window, I fell in easily with their summer routine.
They always tried to arrive at the shows early; early enough to secure front row seats. Their Black Skoda Octavia would be parked on something between a mud-bath and a lawn. The people checking tickets said hello.
As we walked down the grassy hill into the Ennerdale Show, Roger tipped me off. ‘If you’re looking for the wrestling, look out for a small tannoy system.’
For the rest of the week, the grey duck-bills of the speakers were where we headed, time and again – past Tombola stalls, tables with home-made cakes and jam.
Jill Scott from the C&WW Association would be there, accepting entries from the regulars and the first timers.
Once at the ring, camping chairs were planted, coffee was fetched, and people came up to see how Roger and Jill were.
Roger was still wary of me, the clivver London lad, but I think he was a little won round by the fact I’d come back for a longer look.
Sometimes, he introduced me to other wrestling enthusiasts as the descendant of William. Most of them asked if I was going to give wrestling a go. They knew that anyone who wanted could put their name down. Slightly boozed up farm lads often tried their luck, in jeans and socked feet.
‘Not yet,’ I’d say. ‘I’m still in training.’
‘Well, we’ll look forward to it,’ they’d say.
I wasn’t looking forward to it.
The more wrestling I saw, the more I was convinced I’d get injured – perhaps seriously – the moment I got in the ring.
I watched closely.
Jill always took photographs for the website. ‘Although sometimes, I get too involved,’ she said, ‘and forget.’
Roger made notes for his written reports, and shouted advice to his nephews and niece, who often took part. ‘Keep your right shoulder up!’
The most constant voice was Alf Harrington’s. A former All-Weights Champion, he MC’s the bouts through the small tannoy system. It wasn’t hard to imagine him speaking at one of the Lonsdale dinners.
‘I think we’ve got the sunniest part of the day for the wrestling,’ he said at Ennerdale, ‘and the cleanest part of the field.’
It’s true. If you didn’t have the tannoy, you could find the wrestling by looking for the only pristine circle of green in a sea of brown. Thin blue ropes looped around metal poles keep off the Wellingtons and hiking boots.
‘Amazing how uninjured wrestlers are,’ said Roger. ‘A dry year, these rings are like concrete.’
What else did I learn?
The wrestling starts before the wrestling starts. It starts when the wrestlers first see one another, or when they hear who has entered the competition, or when they hear rumours about how hard so-and-so has been training all winter.
There isn’t much warm-up – some discrete hip-thrusts, left and right, whilst chatting to the girlfriend or a mate.
Just as experienced rugby union fans know that the first scrum down is a defining moment of the game – where we see which pack gets the shove – so wrestling aficionados watch how the wrestlers make their entrance.
Some wrestlers, you can see, are defeated the moment the other wrestler comes in view.
Stepping into the ring, each time, is a kind of coming out – ‘My name is X and I self-identify as a wrestler’.
Talking to people about this book, London people, they often conclude – as Leigh does – that wrestling is all homoerotic. It has to be about men finding an arcane way of touching one another, because otherwise they’re not allowed to do it – or think about it. ‘Oh, why don’t they just start snogging?’ is the attitude.*
As I watched bout after bout, I thought about this, in relation to William. Was that what all his love of wrestling, and of the press of crowded rooms, and close male friendship was about – was there a simple key to that? Was William gay?
I could only answer, no. Reading the sentences of Wrestliana as forensically as I could, it isn’t desire I find. William loved fame, he loved being with men, and he loved to win. If you believe that for any man to wish for victory over another man is, at base, because they want to bugger them, then wrestling, chess, all sport, is gay.
In that case, William was gay. I’m gay. Mohammed Ali was gay. And the category of gayness becomes meaningless. Because you’d also have to argue that a strong desire not to participate in competitive sports also reveals essential gayness.
Whatever was going on, in terms of desire, was complex. I didn’t doubt that some male C&W wrestlers fantasized about having sex with one another. The community they belong to isn’t one in which announcing you were gay would exactly be easy. But striding out into the ring, dressed in a floral embroidered centrepiece, to the titters of the first-timer viewers, is – in itself – a fairly major statement of I don’t care what you think, this is who I am.
One of the most interesting things anyone said during my August visit, and it was just an aside, came from Jill Robson. ‘Some of them,’ she said, meaning the younger wrestlers, ‘have overcome a lot just to get in the ring.’
Given the costumes, and the uncool old folk you get to hang out with, wrestling is unlikely to do as much to enhance your reputation at secondary school as, say, having 1,000 followers on Instagram or being able to get hold of high quality drugs.
That summer, I saw boys entering the ring as if heading for the headmaster’s office, and leaving as if they’d been caned, or told they were the new head boy.
Some wore the proper costumes and had trained all winter. Others, egged on by dads and uncles, went in wearing Minions T-shirts – and got swiftly dumped by the lads in long johns.
Whatever their age, the two wrestlers aren’t alone in the ring. There are three others – the referee and two judges.
The judges are ex-wrestlers. Roger would often be called up to take a turn. They kneel or sit, one to East and one to West, whilst the referee circles the wrestlers like a sheepdog trying to keep a nervy flock in check. But the match is also policed by the crowd. There are wise heads, perhaps a little puffy about the right ear, who will shout ‘Heads out!’ or ‘Broke hod!’ if they spot infringements.
Younger wrestlers know, if they still want to enter the ring when their bodies have aged and got injured and said no more, then they too will come to refereeing. It’s second best by a long way, but it’s still near the action. As a former fell runner said to Roger as we entered Grasmere showground, ‘I’d give a town clock to go again’.
There’s a tennis coach who is often on the public courts in Brockwell Park. He’s grey haired, squat, with a very loud voice – and some of the kids he trains are extremely good. Their racquets don’t just go flatly through the ball but describe the kind of butterfly curlicues of Rafa Nadal. As they step forwards to take the ball early, the coach always cries out the same thing, ‘Now explode!’
In all sports, there are explosive moments. But most of them follow on from a period of sizing up the opponent. This is true for boxing, karate, fencing, Graeco–Roman wrestling.
When the umpire of a Cumberland & Westmorland wrestling bout shouts ‘Wrestle!’ they might as well shout, ‘Explode!’
Although the grappling may, a few moments later, become extremely canny – especially if one wrestler has been lifted off the ground and has replied by putting a solid hank in, wrapping his legs like snakes around his opponent’s legs – the first instants are often decisive. Some bouts are over in less than a second.
The explosiveness of it is partly what makes C&W wrestling so thrilling. Here are two competitors going, in one moment, from tensed preparation to absolute effort. Unless one of them, as in the case of brothers or a dodgy deal, is ‘lying down’ for the other, you are witnessing
a wrestler doing their utmost. They reach immediately for the very limit of their strength, because if they don’t they will lose.
A golfer, a tennis player, even a 100-metre champion, can have a lazy style – not a C&W wrestler. If there’s a muscle or a sinew, it will come into play.
Figure 15. In some photographs, only moments from the end of a bout, it’s still hard to tell who’s going to win.
Some wrestlers’ greatest excellence is during the capsize, when the both of them have begun to topple – they can pull a man round from on top of them to beneath them in a few hundredths of a second. This makes it a very demanding spectator sport because, to understand it, you can’t watch slackly. Your alertness needs to climax, your focus needs to be greatest, during those final moments of turn and tussle and twist. One and a half spins can happen whilst you blink. Even the judges often miss what’s happened.
There’s the loser, too. If you’re watching carefully, you can see the look on a man’s face, going down in the third fall, his eyes six inches from the approaching grass – already, he has relaxed into full knowledge of his defeat. Unless his opponent’s knee touches before his own shoulder or hip does, it is over for another year. There is real tragicomedy in this moment – I have not lost yet, although I have already lost.
Roger had advised me to watch Andrew Carlile, as having one of the neatest styles around. Carlile, confusingly, was the coach of the Carlisle club. Roger said he might be persuaded to give me a lesson or two. That would mean getting in the ring with him. I looked him over when he came into view. Andrew Carlile was shorter than me, but all muscle.
I was meaning to speak to him at Crosby Ravensworth, but he lost in an early round and headed home a few minutes later. When I told him, Roger said he could put us in touch.
I watched the other wrestlers, trying to work out which I’d least like to face. In comparison to most of them, Andrew Carlile looked merciless but also friendly. He didn’t look as if he’d kill you by accident.
Asminder Asmindersson of Iceland looked as if he’d be perfectly at home stepping into the battle scene of a saga. He wrestled in a tartan kilt. When I saw him at Ennerdale Show, the first I attended, I thought I might as well go straight back to London – no one was going to beat this monster for the rest of the season.
But then I saw Fraser Hirsch of Scotland, also kilted, take Asminder Asmindersson on, and beat him. When the two of them landed, the horizon seemed to wobble a little bit. Jill Robson caught the moment just before.
Figure 16. Frazer Hirsch fells Asminder Asmindersson. Oof – just oof.
Smaller and more gymnastic, Richard Fox of Hethersgill amazed me every time I saw him. He could work himself up into a state of fearsome intensity. In between falls, he paced the ring in figures of eight. One of his eyes had a grey glaze to it. Here he is, roaring as he downs Asminder Asmindersson.
Figure 17. The roar of victory, like a boiling kettle thrown from an F16 just breaking the sound barrier.
One of the great wrestling dynasties is the Brocklebank family of Warton, Lancashire. Their grandfather, known as ‘Big Wilf’, was a Heavyweight Champion, as was their father, Harry.
I’d already seen Ben Brocklebank, tattooed and holding hands with his girlfriend at the Academy Shield. His costume had the most flamboyant design of any I saw – a scorpion on his right knee, a viper on his left, a tiger on his chest. His wrestling style too was all or nothing. He regularly put down bigger men, but never showed any sign of pleasure.
His older brother Graham, usually wearing a bright orange vest, seemed much more vulnerable. Every twinge of pain was in his face, for all to see. But, when the falls were one apiece, he could get as worked up as Richard Fox.
The biggest of the Brocklebank brothers, Thomas, gave a greater sense of ‘Let’s go to work’, of putting his bulk into action in a calculated manner.
I thought about what sitting round the Brocklebank dining table must be like, and how much food must go on it.
Figure 18. Ben Brocklebank looks as if he’s out for a stroll. Graham Brocklebank looks as if he can feel every bone in his body.
*
By the time we reached the All-Weights Championship, at Keswick, I’d spent a week at ringside and was starting to pick out the chips and throws more clearly.
I knew the styles of the different wrestlers, and I’d seen most of them at four or five different shows. I’d seen Graham Brocklebank fight on with an agonizingly injured shoulder at Crosby Ravensworth, then appear with it strapped in blue tape to win at Grasmere. His face says it all.
I’d seen Richard Fox tumble away after felling his early round opponents, easily as a boy doing a forward roll down a hill. I’d seen Asminder Asmindersson, who continued to terrify me, but who seemed to have been figured out by the British wrestlers.
The one wrestler I hadn’t seen was Robert Leiper, a Northumbrian farmer, who hadn’t competed more than a couple of times all season. He looked bizarrely similar to Superman – broad shoulders, narrow waist, chiselled jaw. He reminded me of my father.
Roger Robson later wrote in his weekly match report:
For me the highest point of a wonderful week of wrestling came in the third round of the All Weights Championship at Keswick when Richard Fox battled back from a fall down against the massive Icelander Asmundur Asmundursson. In the deciding fall you could see what Fox was up to as they circled round. He was sidling towards his favourite chip, and sure enough he struck with the full buttock and the Icelander flew high in the air and then thumped to the ground.
But then Richard Fox went out, and so did Asmundur Asmundursson, and the final for the World Championship came down to Robert Leiper versus Graham Brocklebank, shoulder still giving him trouble.
Figure 19. The Champion of Champions – Robert Leiper – came down from the hills, won, went back to the hills.
Leiper won.
Tom Harrington called it ‘the best heavyweight championship in twenty years’.
And after it’s over? It’s noticeable how embarrassed the celebrations are. Most of the wrestlers, although they have been through it all hundreds of times, have to be called back from trying to leave the ring to have their hand lifted high – to show everyone watching who has won.
Usually, the winner’s head is down, his body language says, ‘I’d rather be anywhere else.’
I saw no triumphalism – yes, the odd fist-pump, but nothing like ‘I’m the champion of the whole fucking world’ (which, when they become world champions, they could quite legitimately claim).
Perhaps the celebrations go off elsewhere, in the pub, back on the farm – perhaps they are wild and egotistical but private.
Congratulations from family members often goes no further than a pat on the back or, maybe, some significant eye contact. There’s not a lot of whooping goes on at Crosby Ravensworth or Grayrigg. The point has been made. You’ve won. It’s something you can think about, quietly, when other things aren’t going too well.
By the end of the week, I think I’d seen some of what William saw.
When the wrestling is good, the edge of the ring is the most exciting place in the world.
* This is a shortcut way of understanding the world; everything a secret history. I used it myself. In 1987, at university, it was my key to everything. What else could explain Margaret Thatcher’s bitter rage against mankind? Or Scargill’s love for the working man? They must want it.
15
Wrestliana
According to William wrestling is not only the most ancient and respectable sport, it is also ‘infinitely superior to any other amusement at present prevalent in the world.’
That is what Wrestliana; or, an Historical Account of Ancient and Modern Wrestling set out to prove.
Although this was still early in the history of sports writing (which is why his book is so collectable*), William wasn’t arguing with himself.†
Wrestliana is a countermove to another book. Boxiana, first published in 1812, was
a bestselling compilation of pugilistic lore, anecdote, opinion and statistical fact. The author of it, the man William was matching himself against, was a famous journalist called Pierce Egan.
Born in 1772, Pierce Egan lived in and wrote about London. His mode is urbane, his tone, knowing. He’s clivver.
William’s book is not a counterpunch – using that language would be granting the upper hand to Egan’s inferior sport. Instead, Wrestliana is William’s attempt to overthrow all other sports. But boxing was the main competitor, in terms of popularity with the common people across England.
And so William begins by proving wrestling’s priority in terms of antiquity and, even, divinity, over boxing.
He doesn’t do this just vaguely, he takes Pierce Egan on point by point. In Boxiana, Egan says he isn’t even going to try to write an early history of pugilism. Its origins are clouded in darkness. And whether the first man, Adam, boxed is completely obscure.‡
William immediately moves in to take advantage. Adam? A mere mortal. In the Bible, in the 32nd chapter of Genesis, there is proof that Jacob wrestled with an angel. William takes a lawyerly delight in this:
That the Patriarch’s antagonist was a being of a superior order, and sent by Divine authority, no Christian has ever yet disputed. That it was… a wrestling match between them, is universally admitted. It cannot therefore be denied, that [wrestling] is either of divine origin, or that a Being more than mortal has participated in it.§
William then seizes upon Pierce Egan’s concession that, in Boxiana, he is not going to try to prove that pugilism dates as far back as the Greeks and Romans.¶
