Cheese Rolling 2011 cancelled

News - The new-look 2011 Gloucester Cheese Rolling event has been cancelled, organisers announced today, following threats and abuse from disgruntled members of the public.

While the introduction of a £20 entrance fee to watch the 2011 Cheese Rolling action from the slopes of Cooper’s Hill in Gloucester was never going to be a popular move, organisers have now announced the cancellation of this year’s event because of threats and abuse of committee members.

Following a meeting on Tuesday 22 March 2011, the Cheese Rolling committee decided that the public backlash about the new two-day paid formula had made the event unworkable – with individual committee members having reported verbal abuse, being spat at and threatened with violence.

The 2009 event attracted a crowd of around 15,000 people to a venue equipped to cope with only 5,000, with the 2010 subsequently event being cancelled over health and safety concerns.

In despite of a new controlled and ticketed format for 2011, it is now feared that the world famous event, with a history dating back hundreds of years, will now die.

Cheese Rolling 2009 video

Cheese Rolling Committee spokesman Richard Jefferies said: ‘Since we announced an entry fee, we have been bombarded with so much hostility and criticism, much of it at a personal level, including accusations of profiteering and some of the committee have even received threats.

‘People have been spat at in the street, received verbal abuse in shops and at school gates and there has even been talk of bricks through windows and houses being burned down.

‘We have also endured a torrent of online criticism and abuse from cowards who failed to identify themselves by hiding behind false identities. It has been horrific.

‘We find these insults, accusations and threats hurtful, frightening and totally unjustified. The committee members have always given freely of their time and effort for years without making a brass farthing from it.

‘The lion’s share of the money raised by the sale of tickets would have gone towards the extensive costs of running the actual event. A significant amount of money had been raised through sponsorship but not enough to offset the whole cost of running the event.

The SoGlos.com team, like Cheese Rolling fans around the world, is saddened by the news and hopes to see the event which helped put Gloucester on the international map rise from the ashes.

SoGlos.com
25 March 2011