BRITAIN'S MOST DANGEROUS SPORT IS CHASING CHEESE DOWN A HILL

Britain's most dangerous annual tradition got conquered by a German YouTuber. Again.

Every spring, Gloucestershire rolls an eight-pound wheel of double Gloucester down a near-vertical hill and invites the public to chase it. Bones break. Grandmothers get knocked unconscious. 

Chris Anderson, the 23-time champion, came out of retirement to defend national honour and lost to a 23-year-old from Munich with a YouTube channel. 

We discuss what this says about Britain, whether English cheese is even worth the fractures, and how many likes it takes before we have to do it ourselves.

00:00 What is cheese rolling
00:45 How the race works
02:15 The grandma incident
03:00 YouTuber vs the retiring champion
05:15 Is English cheese actually good
08:15 The 100 likes challenge

#cheeserolling #coopershill #britishculture

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Transcript

0:00

Did you hear about the result in the cheese rolling? I, I didn't. I, usually I, I subscribe to cheese rolling monthly, but my subscription ran out. I was investing elsewhere Let's- Into chocolatefireguard.com, but yeah, I don't know. Let's just bring our, um, non-British, uh, or anybody that, that doesn't know about cheese rolling into the, the, the joke about what this is, right? So in the UK every year in spring, we have this really, really steep hill somewhere in the south, uh, which we'll go into a little bit later. Gloucestershire, in fact. And every year what they do is they get a big wheel of cheese, and they chuck it at the top of this hill, and then everybody chase asses down the hill as fast as they can, trying not to break their neck. And whoever crosses the line at the bottom wins the prize of the cheese. All right? So- Do they have to- We'll put a picture up on screen of the hill … do, 'cause I thought they had to, like, catch the cheese. Oh, no. There's no catching the cheese. Yeah, no, it's, it's like an eight- Okay. I guess it's going so fast. Yeah. It's like an eight pound double Gloucester cheese rolling down a steep hill, um, at ridiculous speed, and people just kinda chase it after. I think even this year, I think there was a load of, like, stunt men from Hollywood that joined to see if they could win, and they, they couldn't beat this German guy and the guy who came second, who's the guy who's won it, like, multiple, multiple occasions. Um, yeah, so- Right Yeah, it's, it's quite an- I mean, it must be strange when you see people… Uh, how do you train for that? Just launch yourself down a hill So many times a week. I mean, it is one of those games when I was a kid that I'd quite enjoy, you know, where you sort of go sideways, and I think we call it, like, roly polies, where you lie on your side at the top of a hill and just let yourself roll down. Oh, okay. Yeah. You know? I, I'm assuming- Probably- … that, that technique didn't work so good for, for cheese rolling. No, I think you get trampled by the others. The cheese rolling technique seems to be more like that, but doing it, like, head over bollock all the way down. Um- Right … sort of like a, like a cartwheel without any control. Um, and, and yeah, it's, uh, it, it… And it's quite an event. They get hundreds of people turning up to watch. It's, it's not the safest of events either because once there was a, a grandma sat at the bottom, this was in 1990, where they had quite a lot of casualties, I think there was 22. But this grandma was there, 59 years old, and she was knocked unconscious by the cheese wheel as eight pounds of double Gloucester bounced up and hit her in the head and, and knocked her out. That's- And I'm not sure if she still has PTSD as a result. Right. Did, did she get to keep the cheese? Well, you would think that they would at least give her the prize of, you know, keep the cheese, but I, I- At least a, a little, little segment of it. Some compensation. Yeah, I believe it went to the winner. But the thing that is a bit sad about this year's event is not just jokingly that obviously someone from Germany won it, it's that he was a YouTuber And it looks like there was a bit of a battle. So it's Cooper's Hill is what it's called, but this Tom Copake or Copaker, uh, was a German YouTuber, and he challenged the champion, the, the guy who's won the most cheese-rolling competitions, Chris Anderson. Um, and he came out of retirement to beat this YouTuber, and unfortunately, yeah, he lost. It's a little bit like, uh, like, uh, sort of celebrity boxing sort of come out of retirement things like Mike Tyson, Jake Paul. Sound- sounds a little bit like that to me. Yeah. And it's- Maybe less… Maybe a little bit less glamorous and a bit more British. A bit more hilly. Yeah. I- but it's… I, I, I hope that YouTubers are not gonna start getting involved. Um, and apparently even more sad, it's his third consecutive victory, so this YouTuber seems to be coming for the long-standing title, which I guess is why Chris Anderson brought himself out of retirement. I wonder if they had like, you know, tale of the tape sort of posters at the cheese event with a big double Gloucester in the middle, and these two guys stood either side. That maybe there was a, you know, a weigh-in where they had to kind of hold them back from each other. Um- Who's gonna rip him apart, right? Yeah, I can imagine that. Would you be brave enough to take on this, this, uh, event?'Cause I, I believe there's, like, different categories as well, so they, you know, they, they have, like, men's, women's, like, seniors. I think me and you could still get involved. Right. What… Seniors, do I have, like, what, over 70s or something like that? Come on, Grandma, come and launch yourself down this hill. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Go get me that cheese. I think it might have been s- slightly economical with the truth on the seniors one. But, you know, that would be, would be quite a good way to save some money on the NHS, I suppose, 'cause you can't see- Yeah many of them surviving it, really. Just get the numbers down through cheese rolling. Uh, I mean, I don't know. It… Is it, is it really worth for broken bones to, to get that bit of cheese? Um, uh, uh, is, I, I mean, I don't want to upset anyone, but is, is English cheese actually that good anyway? Oh, I don't know. I think you might have crossed the line there, to be honest with you. Um, yeah. There's, it's one of the… I heard this phrase as well, it's like, you know the reason why the French have so many cheese, they have so many different cheeses because they've never been able to make one as good as cheddar. Oh, right. Okay. So they just keep trying. You know, "Oh, let's make another one. Let's make a… Uh, oh, it's still not as good as cheddar." And then, you know- Right … it's like- That's exactly how it went. Exactly how it went. Like, once you've n- got to cheddar, there's no need to keep making lots of different cheeses, you know? Yeah. I don't know. I think there's maybe other countries that do the, the cheese-making thing a- Oh bit better than the UK. Countries? Yeah. I'm sorry, I can't, I can't- Like- … wo- wo- … Spain, Italy. I think f- the French, just in variety as well, it's like pretty good. Even like Netherlands have, like, really good cheeses as well. It's just like a bit more variety. Like, it's not just like cheddar or slightly stronger cheddar or some Wensleydale thing. It's just really dry and… I don't know. Although Wensleydale with, uh, cranberries is quite good. That's quite a good cheese. Stilton. Yeah. You know, I can't believe… I, I, I can, I can almost- … France I can almost accept. Italy, fine, can, can kind of accept that as well. Spain? Oh, it actually is. It's like a really big thing there. Um- That great cheese-making nation that- … that is known as Spain. Yeah, but if you actually go there and try it, it's like, it's really, really good. Like Manchego- What, what cheese is- Uh, Manchego- Oh, Manchego … would be the- Heard of that, okay. Yeah. I thought that was Italian. It's just really good. All right. Give, give you that. No. But yeah, I could be wrong. All right. I don't wanna diss, uh, any cheese fanatics in the UK or anything, but I mean, is it worth hurling yourself down a, a massive hill in pursuit of some double Gloucester? I don't know. It's not really. It's all right on cheese on toast, but… Yeah, it's normally plastic and low quality. It's the same with the, you know, red Leicester, isn't it? It's like… Yeah. I wonder how many other counties we can upset by just going through the cheese. I think, you know, the… we, we should have a debate here in the comments about which nation has the best cheese and which is the best cheese of that nation, because you are forgetting Stilton. Like, Stilton has got a, you know, it's, it's- That is true … it's a very, very good cheese. And we do also have a cheese in the UK called stinky bishop's finger as well. Oh, right. Okay. How did, uh, how did it get that name? I'm not, I'm not so sure how it got that name- … but I know that you do have to keep it inside a box because it smells so bad. Yeah. Although I've had that before with, uh, you know, Camembert. Mm. Um, I bought some and it's in the fridge, and every time I opened the fridge it was just like, ugh. Just unbelievably strong. I, I think it does. It stinks out. So I, I've got a challenge for the audience watching today's video. If we get this video to 100 likes, Adam will do the cheese rolling next year. And if we get it to 1,000 likes, me and Adam will both do the cheese roll next year, um, sort of wheelbarrowing our way down the hill. Um, and if we win the cheese, we're gonna send it to our subscribers, right? That's what we're gonna do next year. Yeah, it sounds like a plan. I, I hope that isn't a, a legally binding contract, uh, but we'll see, see how it goes. Yeah. Although the chances of us getting to 100 likes, I think you might be safe, my friend. But, but you never know, right? This might be the thing that tips us over the edge with the algorithm. So we will see you limbered up at the cheese rolling next year. Good. I'll look forward to it. All right, thanks. But I guess we'll, uh, see you in the next segment. We'll see you next time.