Recently a friend of mine asked me whether famous Lancashire wrestler Wm Charnock held any official titles, championships and etc.
This my post will cover that subject. The thing is, historically, in East Lancashire there were no such things as 'Championship of England' or 'of Lancashire' when it comes to catch wrestling. The different system prevailed. There were pro wrestling promotions which were run by the venue owners. Good examples would be: the Copenhagen Grounds Champion Belt, the Snipe Inn Champion Cup, the Oldham Borough Grounds Champion Cup and etc. Each catch wrestling town in E. Lancs (from Wigan all the way to Burnley) had at least one such promotion. Those were challenge trophies at a specific weight class. Winner of the original tourney had to defend his title 18 months straight to make the trophy his own property. Those were conditions. Some titles were very local and mostly competed by the 'neighborhood' rasslers. Other titles were more prestigious and attracted attention of the best catch wrestlers of the county.
William Charnock in fact held one of such titles. It was - The Burnley Athletic Grounds 6sc 14lb (134lb, lightweight) Challenge Cup, it was a magnificent silver trophy worth 50gs. Catch wrestling under the Manchester's 'Sporting Chronicle' Rules.
Great stuff Ruslan and Ron.
Re the Alhambra bill, is the Charlie Green any relation to the man I saw at Newcastle in the 1950's?
Great research! This stuff is gold!!😍👍👍
When posters refer to an event as"today" with no date does that mean the poster only appeared on the day of the event in expectation of a full house?
Shame Charnock was beaten at the Alhambra semi in 1909 by Tom Rose easily 2-0 after a very easy sequence up to that point. What a gathering of greats with the Carrolls , Rose , Berry and Irslinger and Charlie Green.
There are some mentions of Young Saxon or Babe Saxon
Don't know much about him but pretty sure it was his son.
Amazing that 800 fans in Burnley would be regarded as not as large as expected