Euro dream of young hopefuls
Last updated 13:40, Thursday, 27 March 2008
FOUR young wrestlers from Cumbria and Northumberland are measuring themselves against the best traditional wrestlers in Europe, tomorrow and Sunday, in Tenerife. The Fédération Internationale des Luttes Celtiques (FILC) holds its biennial Espoirs Championships for wrestlers between the ages of 16 and 21.
A full team would consist of seven wrestlers with the five best to count for the team result, so our four wrestlers will be unlikely to figure highly in that aspect of the event. However, each wrestler has an opportunity to win two individual championships, as the competition is held in two basic traditional styles: Gouren, the jacket style of the Bretons, and Backhold, which is the native style of our wrestlers and the Scots, and is closely akin to most of the other traditional styles in FILC.
When we first participated in 1986, Gouren was a mystery to our wrestlers, and the Bretons in turn struggled with our style. That ignorance is now a thing of the past. The Bretons bring tentfuls of young Bretons to compete in our rings at the end of August each year, and we have the likes of Andrew Carlile to train our lads in the Gouren techniques.
He, himself was thrown into the deep-end at the age of sixteen, in the Senior Championships in Leon, Spain, when he was all we could find at under 9st 10lbs. He ended up in second place in the backhold, and has had a notable career ever since.
Twice he won the Junior European Championship, and twice the Seniors. He and David Atkinson are so respected by the Bretons that they are regularly invited to their internal events and attended the wedding of Matthieu Le Dour, their great champion.
The international contact means a lot to him and he has worked hard to develop the 2008 contingent
Of the young wrestlers, only 19 year old Joe Harrington of Kirkbampton has had previous experience of the event.
n 2006 he was in the English team when the event was hosted in the Carlisle area, and last year he travelled to Brittany for their Backhold Championships. He is a longstanding member of Carlisle Wrestling Club where he regularly featured in the Points trophies. In 2006 he won the prestigious Under 18 Centenary Challenge at the Westmorland Show, and last year he achieved his best success so far, a Grasmere Championship at 14 stones. At present he is reading Accountancy at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle.
Craig Naylor, aged 16 years, the grandson of the great mountain runner, Joss Naylor, is at present a student at Newton Rigg, Penrith.
Appropriately, his course is in Sport: Fitness, Training, and Coaching. He is much the lightest of the part, weighing in at 9st 10lb. His wrestling training began at Waberthwaite Academy, but since going to college he catches the train up to Carlisle each week for the Wrestling Club at Currock House. Recently he passed the practical element of the CWWA Basic Coaching Certificate.
The two Northumbrians, Nathan Birdsall (16yrs) and Ross Wilkinson (17yrs), are both sixth-formers at the King Edward VI School, Morpeth. Both are the product and early flowering of the Rothbury Wrestling Club.
Last October, Nathan excelled himself at Alwinton by reaching the final of the All Weights.
In general the team is inexperienced, but Andrew Carlile sees a chance to push for a highly competitive team for the Espoirs in 2010, as this years crop takes their experience forward and more top-class youngsters reach the age of sixteen.
