A Grandmother Who Did No Training Shared the Black Pudding Throwing World Title After a Four Way Tie
June Weir knocked six Yorkshire puddings off a twenty foot plinth in Ramsbottom, beating a field that included her own grandson and entrants from Peru and Sweden.
June Weir of Wilpshire in Lancashire became a joint world champion at the World Black Pudding Throwing Championships in Ramsbottom, after four competitors tied on six Yorkshire puddings dislodged.
It was her third attempt at the title, and she said she had done no training whatsoever, that she had actually won it and could not believe it. The four winners took 25 pounds each from a 100 pound purse, along with a rosette made of black puddings. She indicated she would defend the title next year.
The field included her own 24-year-old grandson as well as entrants who had travelled from Peru and Sweden. The 2026 event raised more than 2,000 pounds for Bury Hospice and Ramsbottom Pantry.
Competitors stand on a golden grid outside the pub on Bridge Street and are given three black puddings each, which must be hurled underarm at a stack of twelve Yorkshire puddings sitting on a plinth twenty feet high. Whoever dislodges the most wins.
The contest is traced by legend to a skirmish at Stubbins in Lancashire in 1455, during the Wars of the Roses, when Lancastrian and Yorkist troops are said to have run out of ammunition and thrown food at each other. It has run in some form for more than a century, revived by a pub landlord in 1839 and again in 1984 by the Stubbins Community Trust.