It was very definitely Ickford's night.

The Buckinghamshire village's tug of war side took less than a minute to haul their Oxfordshire rivals, Tiddington, into the River Thame.

And ten minutes earlier the Ickford youth club side had similarly demolished the Tiddington youth side.

The contest, which has been running since the Coronation year 1953, now has the scoreline of Ickford 25, Tiddington 21.

The record time for winning the contest was 30 seconds some years ago, the longest tug took 12 minutes. Last night's tug over and into the river, which forms the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border, started on a somewhat sombre note.

Present and past tug team members from both sides lined the river bank for a minute's silence to remember the founder of the contest, Alex Neal from Ickford, who was killed in a car accident in Thame earlier this year.

He started the contest with farmer John Bull and was part of the first team.

Since then he had organised the annual event.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.