Welly wanging

This is a sport, honestly.

The ordinary welly, or Wellington boot, has predecessors going back to the Duke of Wellington’s specially commissioned leather boots in 1817. The rubber and PVC versions came out of the Dunlop company’s takeover of New Liverpool Rubber Co Ltd in 1925. In the next few decades the Wellington boot became the essential footwear for wet, muddy, rugged terrains.

So, the British being the British, along came the game of welly wanging (i.e.throwing or flinging). It began in Yorkshire in the 1970s and is now played at sports days, parties, team-building weekends and summer fêtes all over the country. It has even caught on in other countries, particularly, it seems, in Finland, where they have the world record distances for the men’s and women’s categories (there are also boys’ and girls’ categories). The Welly Wanging World Championships are held each year in Upperthong, Yorkshire. Yes really!

(Image: Magic Foundry at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)