SOME of the music world's top brass will march into Chorley next month for the Tetley Cup brass band weekend.

More than 40 bands will take a deep breath to try to blow away the competition on Saturday, September 1, in an attempt to revitalise brass banding in the area.

The weekend also marks a return for the Tetley Cup which has been lying dormant in Yorkshire for 15 years after the brewery pulled out of sponsorship.

Cath Hoyle, executive member for sports, arts and community development at Chorley Borough Council, said: "The aim of the weekend is to get more young people interested in playing brass instruments and to raise the profile of the local brass band."

A tradition stretching back hundreds of years, brass bands have, in recent years, received a slightly less glamorous image thanks to its stereotype of an older person's pastime and films like Brassed Off, in which performing in a brass band was the only source of inspiration for unemployed males in a poverty-stricken North East mining town.

On the Saturday youth bands will compete in Chorley centre and bands will also perform at The Minstrel pub, Eaves Lane, where they will march on the car park.

Sunday will see section one and two brass bands competing from 1pm at The Minstrel, with the evening competition at 6pm hoping to attract the top championship bands in the country.

The weekend follows a mini-brass band festival in May on The Minstrel's car-park, organised by landlord Martin Lingard, which was such a success that there was sufficient interest for another event.

He said: "The Tetley Cup went missing after a contest in Leeds in 1984, and the cup has been lying around in Marsden since 1985.

"The Minstrel serves Tetley bitter, so I asked them if we could have the cup and they agreed!"

The event is supported by the Millennium Festival Committee, Awards for All, Chorley Council and Tetley's, and proceeds will go to St Catherine's Hospice.