How many times, when you were a kid, did you make a funny face to Mom (or grandma) and have them sternly tell you, "Don't make faces like that or it will stay like that way!"
If you're particularly good at making ugly, funny, or gross faces, have I got a competition for you.
The Athletic should win a Pulitzer for this story about a tiny village called Egremont in northwestern Cumbria, England, that hosts an annual Crab Fair. No, not a fair about crustaceans and the delicious eating thereof. This fair celebrates crab apples.
The reason they celebrate crab apples is lost to history, given that the first Crab Fair was held in 1267. However, what transpires during this fair can only be described as beyond belief.
There are traditional events like wheelbarrow racing and dart throwing, as well as horticulture and dog shows. There's a greasy pole climbing competition and a "parade of applecarts." But then there are a few odd events that give a very local flavor to the Crab Fair.
There's a pipe-smoking contest where the fastest to smoke an ancient clay pipe wins, and a special kind of wrestling called "Cumberland wrestling," where competitors lock their hands behind their opponent's back and try to lift and throw them to the ground.
"Horn blowing, hunting, comic songs, and a special Crab Fair cake raffle will also take place before the gurning at around 8 pm," the Fair website tells us.
What in the wide, wide, world of sports is "the gurning"?
Gurning means “to show or gnash the teeth in rage or scorn; to snarl as a dog, to look savage; to distort the countenance”, according to the English Dialect Dictionary. And the self-proclaimed "World Championship of Gurning" is held every year in tiny Egremont.
“It is believed to have originated from the mockery of the village idiot. It is claimed that townsfolk would throw a horse’s collar over the individual and make them pull funny faces in exchange for pints of ale,” the Crab Fair’s website says.
The competition includes the contestant wearing a horse collar, the kind you might put on a draft animal, and then going through a routine that has to be seen to be believed.
Other theories center on the sour crab apple and the faces people make when consuming them.
“Legend has it that a couple of farmers, who were harvesting the apples, were having a couple of beers and one of them got one of the wives to take a bite of an apple and, as she did, one of them threw a horse’s collar over her head,” said Kevin Brown, a Crab Fair committee member and the host of the World Gurning Championships.
“Crab apples are very sour and, naturally, when you bite into something that’s sour your face contorts. She pulled a face and gurning was born.”
"Another theory involves the Lord of Egremont, who was fond of pranks and began the tradition of throwing apples to the crowd to open the fair."
“The people thought it was brilliant and generous of the lord but when they bit into the apple they realised it was a crab apple and, therefore, had to pull an ugly face because it was so sour,” said fellow committee member Dan Nixon. “That is how gurning was born. Every year there is a parade on the midday of the Saturday of the fair where apples are thrown to the crowds to commemorate that moment.”
The bizarre World Gurning Championship, held at Cumbria's Egremont Crab Fair, UK held since at least 1852 https://t.co/zsuUPhealJ
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) May 1, 2025
From @TheAthletic: The World Gurning Championships is one of many weird and wonderful events held at the Egremont Crab Fair, an annual celebration that dates back to 1267 in north-west England. https://t.co/cUiIkZxE3E https://t.co/Pplzurt3Ob
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 5, 2026
The World Gurning Championship is a centuries-old face-pulling contest held each year at the Egremont Crab Fair in Cumbria, England. Contestants place their faces through a horse collar, known as a braffin, and compete to create the funniest, ugliest, or most distorted expression possible. Extremely cool moments: https://t.co/UP5OjjFjqp
— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) August 11, 2026
“We’ve had people from America, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, France,” said Brown. “We had a woman last year from Massachusetts. She flew over and I asked her why and she said it was on her bucket list. She had seen it on YouTube.”
Winners of the gurning championships have enjoyed some fame, too, by appearing on TV shows in the UK and elsewhere. Tommy Mattinson, who has won the event a record 19 times, has been on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and even gurned for the late Queen Elizabeth II when the monarch visited the town.
Gurning is tailor-made to mock politicians.
Ladies and gentlemen…the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom…obviously going for the world gurning championship title…what a fecking arse #JohnsonOut #BorisJohnsonResign https://t.co/CjhpprMUmG
— Adrian M Gill 💙 (@gilly0702) March 23, 2022
Breaking news!! Rumours have it @realDonaldTrump is going to visit Egremont Crab Fair and enter the world gurning championship with @theresa_may. Look out @AdyZiv 🙈 https://t.co/FPK9luxjBc
— Egremont Crab Fair (@EgremontCF) July 7, 2018
Queen Elizabeth was not amused.
The Queen had to secretly pretend to enjoy this World Gurning Champion's performance😂👑 https://t.co/wPy3fReOCx
— thomas price (@thomas_price56) October 4, 2026
We can only hope these contestants' mothers' remonstrances about having their faces frozen forever in those horrific grimaces do not come true.
