Whit Friday 5th June 2009 2008

On Friday 5th June 2009 the band took part in the Tameside and Saddleworth Whit Friday Contests. Throughout the week the weather was glorious, however, on Friday afternoon about 3:00 p.m. The weather finally changed for the worse.

 

The band met at Crown Point Denton at 4:00 p.m. In the pouring rain. Our first contest venue was Old Aldwinians Rugby club, there were 5 bands waiting in front of us, we took our turn and waited mainly in the coach to keep dry.

 

Next was the Bush Inn at Droylsden, still raining. Onto Hurst Cross and Ashton United football club, STILL RAINING. Next visit was to Heyrod the rain stopped so off with the waterproofs and on with our nice blue jackets, it was here that the photographer from the Tameside Reporter caught up with us. Heading next to the Tame Valley  in Dukinfield, rain still holding off. We then headed for our home venue of Denton Cricket club, here we were met by a rapturous welcome and were straight on to play, the weather smiled on us here and the sun tried (unsuccessfully) to break through. We took this opportunity to obtain the latest band photograph seen above.

We headed to Stalybridge with the weather once again turning against us, two other bands to play before we got our chance, the band played well here.

Carrbrook next   three bands ahead here, the rain started again, however the band had it’s best performance of the evening so far coming 21st overall beating some higher section bands here.

 

It’s now dark and the band head over into Saddleworth. the band wanted to play at Greenfield, so with only 15 minutes to go before the deadline for signing in at Greenfield we bypassed Friezland. Managed to sign in successfully but had about a ¾ hour wait behind eight bands, most people took advantage of this wait to be fed and watered, a long march almost the full length of Greenfield village before finally going on stage to play our contest march (Fraternal Greetings) from the time we arrived here to the time we left the rain was torrential. This was the end of our evening and a very tired band retired home to Denton to seek shelter in a local hostelry. Saturday morning we were delighted to find that we had won the prize for BEST FOURTH SECTION  BAND  at Greenfield, we came a very high 21st out of 62 bands beating 1 championship section 2 first section, 5 second section and 5 third section bands.

The band had a very good evening and increased their placing over the last five years at four of the venues. Let us hope the trend continues next year.