Hold on to your curds and brace yourselves for a WHEELY cheesy adventure!
This past Monday, the picturesque hills of Gloucestershire transformed into a playground of laughter and dairy delight, all thanks to the legendary Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling Competition. This rollicking tradition has gained global fame, captivating the hearts of cheese enthusiasts and thrill-seeking dairy lovers alike and Red Candy wants to celebrate its cheesy, awesome-ness!
To honour this GRATE day, we wanted to share a few fun Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling facts with you:
- The first one to make it to the bottom and across the finishing line wins the cheese. In theory, it’s the one who catches the cheese that wins it but given that it can reach speeds of up to 70 miles per hour, the chances of actually catching it are slim.
- Up until 2009, the Cheese-Rolling was an official event. But it was called off over concerns for the safety of the spectators. This, however, hasn’t stopped the locals from continuing the tradition. The concerns are not without reason and contestants being hospitalized are not unheard of.
- In fact, Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling has been called the world’s most dangerous footrace and described as “twenty young men chasing a cheese off a cliff and tumbling 200 yards to the bottom, where they are scraped up by paramedics and packed off to hospital.”
- In 1983, A 27-year-old named "Digger" Gardener dashed down wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a jockstrap. He claimed the outfit "did wonders for streamlining", and so it must have done--he won first and second place.
- To overcome their fear, most Cheese Roll runners rely on Dutch courage. Any alcohol will do, but the anaesthetic of choice tends to be scrumpy or, in a pinch, perry (hard cider made from pears).
- No one has ever been killed at the cheese roll, though there is an apocryphal story about a runner dropping dead at the end of a race centuries ago...
