Organised by the excellent Gawthorpe Maypole Committee, the Championships show the best of our community. For 62 years, local people from 5 to 78 have come together to carry sacks of coal across a thousand metre route.
The Championships represent the best of our community. These are events run by volunteers working hard to keep them going, while local competitors give their all in front of their friends, families and neighbours.
In fact, events like this are crucial to forming our community. They don’t just celebrate our heritage, but ensure that our culture and traditions are a living thing, preserved and carried on for future generations.
These traditions and institutions are key to the future of our community itself, having outlived some of the industry and economic opportunities that created them. While deindustrialisation risked our community fraying, this shared culture kept our area together. They helped us honour our past, while ensuring people met together, creating ties of friendship and shared culture beyond any political disagreements.
It is not just the Championships or the Gawthorpe Maypole that provide these opportunities for connection and community. Each and every town and village in our area, in West Yorkshire, and the North, have traditions and clubs that are unique to them.
Across our country, people come together every weekend to cheer on local football, rugby and cricket teams.
This week I was proud to support the Football Governance Bill which will ensure that fans, who make the game what it is, will have a voice in its future. Football clubs are woven into families and communities - inherited from previous generations, and ready to be given onto the next.
That relationship is clear in our area. Ossett United, founded in 2018 as Albion and Town merged, has been kept alive through the contributions and volunteering of supporters. Just recently I met with several volunteers at Hall Green Junior FC who work so hard to get more girls into the game, while all of Horbury celebrated their local team winning the league.
The Bill will create an Independent Football Regulator, ensuring democratic engagement with fans, financial stability for clubs and the football league, and greater respect for their heritage.
It allows Labour to safeguard the future of clubs, which have been built and nurtured by local people, to ensure future generations will see their positive impact in communities.
We know that, for a kid in Horbury, watching Horbury Town win the league matters just as much as Liverpool’s title - so the future of their team is just as important as anything happening at Anfield.
Whether it is defending the ‘national game’ with concrete reforms, or a town coming together to watch coal carrying, I will always support communities to support themselves.
While I may need to put in a stint in at the gym before I could enter the Championships myself, I am glad to see it thrive, fostering community and togetherness in our area.