THE world's most bizarre pub game took to the skies in Stubbins as the top players gathered for the World Black Pudding Lobbing Championships.

The strange game is played at the Corner Pin pub and the winner can claim to be a world champion because nowhere else has the unique competition.

Each competitor has to try to knock some Yorkshire puddings off a wooden platform 20ft up the pub wall with three throws of a black pudding.

Landlord Jim Cunliffe says it dates from when Yorkshire people had an annual holiday to Blackpool and Southport and used to stop at the pub for a drink and a rest. He said: "There were fights between locals and the visitors and the landlord at the time decided he needed to do something about it. He saw some lads throwing Yorkshire puddings around and decided it would be a good idea to have a challenge to take people's minds off fighting.

"The puddings come from Yorkshire and the black puddings from Lancashire." "It doesn't happen anywhere else in the world."

This year's men's champion was Dave Howarth with eight puds and the women's title went to Janine Cunliffe with three. They each won their height in beer cans.

The record, set four years ago, is 14.

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