Blackpool's hairy heroes head to British Beard and Moustache Championships

The Sandgrown Beardsmen, which has welcomed 'growers and lovers of fine facial hair' to its ranks since its conception in 2015, will compete in the British Beard and Moustache Championships at the Temple Speech Rooms in Rugby this August.

Club founder Brian Eva said: “With Covid in 2020 the championship was cancelled, and it was cancelled again in 2021, so for most people involved it will be a chance to see people who they’ve been separated from for the past two years.

“It’s a friendly atmosphere, lots of people having a drink and a good laugh. That’d really what the club is all about - community.”

The championship event will be the fifth of its kind in the UK, with Blackpool' s Winter Gardens hosting the last one in 2018.

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Bearded competitors will be judged in a number of different categories, separated into three groups: moustaches, partial beards, and full beards. Style categories include goatee, English moustache, musketeer, Fu Manchu, kaiser beard, Garibaldi beard, and the unpredictable 'freestyle' which encourages people to embrace their creativity, dying their beards rainbow colours and molding them into extravagant works of art.

Ahead of the national championships, the Beardsmen will also be competing at the Opie's Beard Co Beard and Moustache Championships as part of the Loddon Brewery Beer and Beard Festival in Reading in May.

Brian said: “Hopefully at least one of our guys will win something. I’d like to think I will place somewhere in the full beard competition as I finished in second place in 2018; it would be nice to finish up there again.”

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