The Pinnacle Of Piping

The Worlds piping championships draw hundreds of bands from near and far - Canadian piper Zephan Knichel explains the attraction...

- NICK DRAINEY

FOR two days each August, there is very little green to be seen on Glasgow Green. Instead there are all of the colours of the rainbow, picked out in tartans from around the country and the world as around 150 bands and thousands of pipers and drummers descend on the city.

Last year more than 40,000 spectators descended on the green in blazing August sunshine to watch the Northern Irish Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band take the top honours at The World Pipe Band Championships, after a two-year Covid-enforced gap.

This year, organisers are hoping for equal success for the competition, affectionately known as the Worlds. There are a range of different categories for competitors, including for juniors and adults, and for individual drummers as well as bands. But the grade one bands contest is the top class in every sense of the word - the winner is crowned world champion.

Scottish bands have always dominated the most successful being the Strathclyde Police Pipe Band (now the Police Scotland and Federation) with 20 wins. But in 1987, the previous Scottish monopoly was blown open as the 78th Frasers from Canada became the first non-Scottish band to take the title.

One of the most successful overseas bands is the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, based in Vancouver in Canada, which has seized the title six times. Coming to Glasgow is a massive operation for the band - each year they bring between 40 and 50 musicians along with family and friends, financed both by the individuals, the band and grants.

"It's quite a large undertaking," says Simon Fraser piper Zephan Knichel. "But the band is first and foremost a competition band. We go to the world championships in Glasgow every year as it is the pinnacle event for competitive pipe bands."