2025 Competition

Results:

Team 1 - Chester (Deva)

This team made good use of their practice - clearly an inspirational pep talk between practice touches.  You then settled into their test piece with some confidence.  You struggled ever to get complete mastery of it, although you showed what you could do in the run up to the first course end and afterwards, which was really good.  We all thought the treble was rung well, and the little bells were better when they were at the back on their own, rather than when navigating through the rest of the pack.  Speed was probably about right, but there was a steady accumulation of faults throughout the piece.

Team 2 - Manchester

There was a lot to like in this touch, and it was almost a different band to the one that rang the practice.  But is was as if 90% of each row was really good but then you had very discrete blemishes. So, fundamentally it was sound, but it needed to get rid of the big clips.  And it was usually clips not gaps.  The back bells were doing a good job at keeping everything moving along.  There was very little stringing out, with the tenor confidently rung.  It just needed to get rid of the clips.

Team 3 - Stafford

Team 3 treated us to a comedy but beautifully struck 10-9 at backstroke at the start.  There's some bad news and some good news here.  The bad news is the problem of bells not really ringing at the same speed.  Too many rows started with gaps and hesitations, and then the rest of the row would fall over itself, with the tenor not really sure where to go.  However - the good news - this should be relatively easy to fix with just a lot more emphasis on driving the handstrokes at the start of each row so the bells spread out a bit better.  So quite a lot of faults, but take heart that there are things you can do to easily improve that.

Team 4 - Birmingham (St Paul's)

A good pull off always makes the judges sit up and take notice!  This was a very professional piece of competition ringing.  It had drive, it was very even, and the blemishes were minor.  There were one or two quick leads perhaps, and the odd dropped backstroke, but overall this was a pleasure to listen to.  Even by the litle child who went past our camper van and said, "Daddy, the bells!". 

Team 5 - Chester (Addleshaw)

Team 5 gave us another confident piece of ringing that was very nice to listen to.  You reined back the speed a bit from your practice which we thought was wise, settling in at about 3:24 pace.  Quite a few of the faults came from slight stringing out of the handstroke row, leading to the backstroke lead hitting the tenor.  We also thought the leading was a litle variable.  But these were minor irritations in what was fundamentally a very good touch.

Team 6 - Macclesfield

Team 6 made a pretty decent start after using the practice to learn the method!  You decided to ring the bells a bit more quickly than other teams and almost, but not quite, got away with it.  There were some quick backstroke leads again here, but not as a result of stringing out the previous row.  The faults came as it fell over itself slightly, but overall it was a good attempt.

Team 7 - Liverpool

And finally, Team 7 as the sun started to set.  We'd describe this as there or thereabouts.  Nothing massively stood out - it was a trickle of small faults rather than big errors.  We thought the first halves of the rows were often slower than the second halves, especially when the back bells were coming off the front and could have pushed on a bit.  But overall this was a decent piece.

Thanks

Many thanks to Nigel Horritt, Selwyn Jones and all of the Stafford ringers for their hospitality, to photographer Paul Milgate Scarrott, and to the Rector and PCC of St Mary's church for the use of the church and bells.