The CLA Game Fair will put a Buzz into Belvoir

Belvoir will be buzzing next month – buzzing with enthusiasm and excitment as more than 100,000 people travel from all over the world travel to take part in, visit or just enjoy the biggest travelling country fair on the continent – The CLA Game Fair.

The CLA Game Fair, held in association with The Daily Telegraph, is a family day out – it is fun, educational and entertaining. It’s a place to indulge yourself in fine food or try your hand at shooting, fishing or falconry or enjoy the company of the furred and the feathered from the mischievous to the magnificent. It also hosts international gundog competitions, the leading clay pigeon shooting contests and the most important fly casting championships in the UK.
Stars of the screen, radio and TV will mingle with politicians, international champions, competitors and visitors from across the world at The CLA Game Fair which opens for three days on July 24 at Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire.
The CLA Game Fair, which is held in association with the Daily Telegraph, offers something for everybody in an action packed start to the summer holidays. You can watch it, try it, taste it and buy it as virtually every imaginable sporting and recreational pastime comes together on one site.
This is a complete one-stop-shop for all rural sports and hobbies. There’s advice, debates, contests and competitions. There’s fishing, falconry and ferrets, hounds, horses and holidays, clay pigeon contests and cookery – plus the biggest outdoor shopping centre in Europe with nearly 1,000 trade stands ranging from the famous to the downright curious and offering everything from high fashion to antiques and fine arts as well as the top names in sporting goods and accessories.
The event is returning to Belvoir Castle after a four-year gap and organisers want to make sure Game Fair visitors take full advantage of the opportunity to enjoy everything that is going on around them.
“The aim is not just to leave visitors to wander through The Game Fair simply looking at the exhibits and demonstrations, The Game Fair’s message is “Come On, Have a Go”. We’ll be actively encouraging people to get involved, try something new – there can’t be many places where youngsters can handle ferrets or falcons, try their hands at archery or aerial trapeze, parachuting or pet management all on the same site – but they can at the Game Fair,” said Game Fair Director, David Hough.
All around the site there is a chance to enjoy fine foods from around the region and in The Game Fair’s Totally Food Show celebrity chefs will be preparing delicious dishes from local ingredients and experts will be showing how to put the fun into food for kids.
The shooting area offers the most exciting series of competitions, demonstrations and exhibitions to be found anywhere in the country plus a chance to see three times world champion John Bidwell showing how to break a stream of clay pigeons shooting from apparently impossible angles.
In fisherman’s village there are events for beginners and novices as well as crusty old fishermen. There’s a chance to actually go fishing in one of Belvoir’s famous lakes, to talk to the UK’s leading fishermen and women and take part in the huge range of competitions and championships. The favourites include the world famous International Open Spey Casting Championship the trout distance and accuracy competitions, the Salmon Distance and the International Saltwater Fly Casting Championship.
In the gundog section two new competitions will mark the contribution one family has made to the gundog world with the Joan Hayes Challenge Trophy, an invitation event for gun dog clubs, which will be run on the Friday and the Edgar Winter Trophy, a competition for the overseas teams competing in the Euro Challenge on Friday, will be held on Saturday and Sunday.
CLA Game Fair local committee gundog chairman, Jonty Lightowler, explains: “Holding The Game Fair at Belvoir has given us the chance to offer some public recognition to Joan and her father, Edgar – who have contributed a huge amount to the gundog world and this is our way of saying thank you for that work.”
The international level competition kicks off with teams from all over Europe taking part in the Euro Challenge on Friday which will be followed by the ever popular Home International which will see some of the best dogs and handlers from Britain competing for the 2006 team champion’s title during Saturday and Sunday.
Entertainment in The Game Fair’s main arena includes demonstrations by Game Fair favourites, Jemima Parry-Jones MBE and Katy Cropper.
Jemima is a world renowned falconry expert and made a welcome return to The Game Fair last year, her quick fire comments and brilliant handling skills make for an
unmissable display. Katy is another main ring doyen and Britain’s most famous shepherdess. The only woman to win BBC TV’s ‘One Man and His Dog,’ Katy is back on the competitive circuit and she will be delighting the crowds with her wit and humour as well as her shepherdessing skills with ducks, geese and, of course, sheep.
“For anybody who has never been or thinks that The CLA Game Fair may not be for them my message is think again – The CLA Game Fair is, quite simply, the best countryside event there is – it is an amazing day out for the whole family. It is the one place where everything, which touches the rural way of life, comes together for three days on the same site. It is educational and instructive and it is competitive in some areas but above all it is about enjoyment, about getting involved and having fun,” said Mr. Hough.
For full details on The CLA Game Fair please see www.gamefair.co.uk