THIS picture above captures the scene on Good Friday, 1957 when two teams from the Bowling Green pub in Lee Lane, Horwich staged a great Piggy challenge.

It was a revival of the old Lancashire miners' game and it attracted hundreds of spectators, representatives of the national press, a newsreel company and the BBC.

Mr Alan Robinson of Ormston Avenue, Horwich, who was there at the time, loaned us the photograph.

The Lancastrians, led by Mr Edward Lancaster, beat the Gormanians, led by Mr Robert Gorman, by 85 points to 69.

Our report from the time said: "Devotees of the fine points of piggy may have been disappointed, but were rewarded by the antics of the captains, who played it as a comic game."

The reporter also observed: "Veterans of the old days of piggy playing included the referee, Mr Tom Valentine and 69-year-old Jack Pye, Wright Street, Horwich, who watched the game from his wheelchair."

Mr Robinson, who is aged 76 and a well-known member of Horwich Harriers, remembers that Teddy Lancaster was a skilled plasterer whose talents had been used at the Empire State Building in New York.

The man dressed in white in the centre is Billy Ellis, Mr Robinson recalls.

A trawl through our files reveals this description of the game:

"The 'piggy', a small tapered piece of wood, is placed on a brick on the ground and hit with a striker, a wooden stick with two flat edges. As the piggy rises into the air it is struck again and hit as far as possible. The person who hits the piggy must estimate how far away it is from the brick and invite one of the opposition to cover the distance in a certain number of jumps.

If the jumper fails, the hitter scores the number of strides he gave as points for his team. If the jumper makes it he scores the strides as points.

The game ends when each member of the team has hit the piggy a set number of times."

Our cutting show that there have been a number of local revivals over the years, particularly the annual competition which Turton Sports Council organised in the 1970s.

More than 60 teams - each of six players - entered in 1973 and hundreds of people turned up for the finals at Egerton Cricket Club.

In 1971 there was a challenge match on Bolton Wanderers' training ground in Bromwich Street which featured teams from Bolton Round Table, Bolton's 41 Club and Bolton Police - the police won, helped by top scorer Sgt Ray Haslam.

Various other schools, companies and pubs have held piggy championships over the years, but there does not seem to be anybody keeping the faith at the moment.

In the 1990s the "World Piggy Championships" were held at St Maxentius Primary School playing fields as part of a family fun day being organised by the Crofters pub in aid of Birtenshaw Special School.

But since then there seems to have been a shortage of poggers - that's what players are called.