What is apple Wanging?
Apple Wanging (wanging: to hurl, apple: it’s obvious) is always a highlight of Alton Apple day. The fiercely fought competition is open to both children and adults, with each class battling for the honour of having their name immortalised on one of the highly coveted Apple Wanging Champion Trophies. Made from oak, silver birch and beech wood, the trophies were hand crafted in 2023 by ACE's very own talented Kevin.
For those not familiar with the sport of ‘Apple Wanging’, the principals are similar to the more widely practised sport of ‘Welly Wanging’ however there are two subtle differences. The latter involves a Wellington Boot being ‘wanged’ in a horizontal plane, whereas the prior involves a sack of apples (of a defined weight) being wanged upwards over a bar.
Height rather than distance is the measuring stick and, similar to the high jump in athletics, competitors take turns to wang the sack (rather than themselves) over the bar.
After each round, the bar is raised, and any competitors who fail to get the sack over the bar are eliminated. The competition continues until only one successful wanger remains. The last wanger standing is then duly crowned the Champion of Apple Wangers and their name joins the Role of Honour of the past great Alton Wangers!
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Fancy your chances?
Click on the link to view our Wanging Champions leader board of current reigning champions plus previous year's winners
The History of Wanging
But is Apple Wanging just a simple bit of fun, or is there more to it? It has been suggested the art of ‘Wanging’ in one form or other goes back many centuries. In fact, some say it goes back to the days of old, when knights were bold, and Tinder hadn’t been invented. Fancying a good (k)night out had a very different connotation back in those ye olde days!
It has been suggested that the knights would practice the sport of apple wanging within view of the local castle as a way to show off their strength and wanging skills to the young ladies who resided within. In those times, fathers were particularly protective of their daughters and didn’t want them messing around with any old knight, especially when entire kingdoms were potentially at stake. Castle gates therefore, were often heavily guarded, which meant in order for a for a young lady to enjoy a ‘night out’ she would have to sneakily abseil from her tower to meet the waiting suitor below.
Having thoroughly enjoyed her ‘night’, the return to her tower early the next morning would be fraught with challenges as scaling the castle walls was found to be much trickier than descending them. Whilst using ropes and ladders might have seemed the obvious choice, they were however too easily seen, instantly giving the game away. Instead, the knight would attempt to wang the maiden by grabbing her by her waist and hurling her up towards the open window.
To reach the uppermost windows and win the affections of the most prestigious maidens knights would need to not only hone their technique but also build up their upper body strength. In order to avoid the suspicion of protective parents and guards, young knights would develop their wanging skills using weighted sacks. Over time, it became evident that apples were the best substitute weight for maidens and knights, being the competitive sort by nature, soon began competing with one another to see which nobleman could wang the highest. And so began the sport of Apple Wanging.
It is also suggested that this gave rise to the apple variety named ‘Pink Lady’ due to the likeness between its colour and the crimson blushing of the
maidens’ after being ‘wanged’ up the castle wall. The knight below would subsequently enjoy a fine view of her ‘blushed’ cheeks!
Or is it all just a bit of fun?
