Vibrations and victories at the World Worm Charming Championships

On the flat, green expanse of a school playing field in Nantwich, Cheshire, a crowd armed with French horns, recorders, pogo sticks and pitchforks are sizing up their patches of grass like rival prospectors. ​“Don’t think we’re going easy on you this year,” one man warns a neighbouring team as they stake out their turf for the 46^th annual World Worm Charming Championships. The threats are only half-joking – for the next 30 minutes, every square metre could make the difference between glory and going home wormless.

The premise is simple: teams have 30 minutes to coax as many worms as possible from a designated 3×3 metre plot. Digging and use of water are both strictly forbidden, according to co-founder Mike Forster. Instead, worms must be charmed by ​“vibrations”, which he explains works ​“because the worms think it’s rainfall”. The techniques for this vary: There’s the traditional ​“twanging” – driving a garden fork into the ground and rhythmically vibrating it so the soil shivers like rain. Some prefer music, from harmonicas to heavy metal blasted through portable speakers. Others prefer stamping, with a variety of footwear.

Forster, now 74, co-founded the event in the early ​’80s alongside Gordon Farr and deputy headteacher John Bailey, after the latter suggested using the same methods that fishermen and blackbirds use to draw worms from the ground. ​“Amazingly, and it’s quite awe-inspiring to watch, they do come out!” says Forster, still known affectionately as the Chief Wormer of Great Britain and the World. ​“Everything you see is true… we just enhance it a little bit and make it more magical.”

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Since then, he’s seen the championships grow from a small village oddity to a Guinness World Record-holding spectacle. ​“Now we get more outsiders coming in, and people who live here bringing their children. That’s what it should be all about,” he says. Over the decades, it’s drawn visitors from overseas, film crews, and even the attention of American radio hosts. In 2009, nine-year-old Sophie Smith set a worm-charming world record with 567 worms – a feat achieved the day after Michael Jackson died. ​“We went onto American radio. I asked if they really wanted to do this while the whole of America was in mourning,” Forster recalls. ​“Then we thought: ​‘Yeah, it’s a British way of doing things. It might cheer people up.’”

When the starting whistle blows, the field erupts into an orchestral buzz of clattering, banging, honking and stamping. Trombone blasts ripple through the grass. Recorders wheeze plaintively in the wind. Two children tap spoons on saucepans with the solemn concentration of concert percussionists. Some competitors are laid down foreheads-to-floor with kazoos or bike horns, others are now five feet in the air on pogo sticks.

Amongst the ruckus, brothers Chris and Johnathon White are dressed as a giant earthworm and an oversized bird. Chris, the worm, is sitting on the grass, tail curled behind him, strumming a ukulele into the soil while the sheet music for ​‘There’s a Worm at the Bottom of the Garden’ flickers in the breeze. ​“We’re not trying too hard or anything, we’re just playing some appropriate songs,” he says. ​“You’ve just got to go for it really. I’m always very apprehensive when we’re queuing up to come in. But once you brought this kind of thing” – he gestures bashfully to his hand-made worm tail – ​“there’s no going back really.” The pair have been several times, and know their stuff about worm charming. ​“We’ve got a bad plot here, we are quite near the trees, but ideally I want to be right next to them,” says Johnathon, the bird, his voice struggling through his papier-mâché beak. ​“That tends to be where the people get the most worms.”

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On the other side of the field, Shin, a student from Tokyo now studying in Liverpool, has shown up in a suit, explaining that he wants to ​“charm” the worms with politeness – a tactic he suspects he’ll abandon next year. ​“This is… very British,” he says, scanning the scene around him. ​“In Japan, people are more serious. We have more cultural or traditional events, so something like this might feel like it’s taking the mick”. He’s already planning to try cheese-rolling next year: ​“It’s a different way to think about life.”

By halfway through, some cups are heaving with movement while others remain stubbornly still. The competitors are serious about their craft. Paul, 53, has been coming since 1995 and knows the feel of good worm ground. ​“It’s a bit dry this year,” he says, ​“but in the past, I’ve had 200 or 300. I’ve never won – that must be an amazing feeling – but it’s really competitive.” The key, he explains, is patience: ​“Don’t grab them straight away. Let them come up a bit more. If you go too soon, they just slip back down.”

Running alongside is a serious operation. Laura, a so-called ​“worm warden”, estimates around 3,000 people turned out last year. ​“There’s five key members and then other volunteers running everything – the bar, the games, donuts, ice cream. It needs lots of volunteers to do it.” As well as raising money for the school, the proceeds go to charities including the Cystic Fibrosis trust, for which Forster is running a stall. ​“Now, we get more outsiders coming in and people coming in who live here,” says Forster. Since gaining popularity, it’s also given Nantwich a boost: ​“The chip shop did well. The shops did well. Pubs did well,” he says.

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Half an hour of concentrated worm charming is surprisingly gruelling. By the final stretch, some competitors are flushed and grass-stained. ​“My son’s still sat down recovering,” Forster laughs. ​“And he’s fit.” But the atmosphere builds again as the finish line draws near. When the whistle blows, the racket stops as suddenly as it began. People step back from their plots – some holding jars brimming with worms; others staring ruefully into empty cups.

The worms are carried to the counting tent, where volunteers sift through the writhing soil with wide-mesh pans – the same kind used for gold prospecting. After the tallying is complete, the Thomasson family of Willaston are crowned champions, finally lifting the trophy after more than three decades of trying. Their winning plot produced 71 worms, coaxed to the surface by the rhythmic tapping of garden forks with rubber mallets, ​“like the sound of rainfall.” They hold up a silver engraved cup, proof that persistence, in worm charming as much as anything else, can pay off.

As tradition dictates, all worms are safely released back into the ground after dusk, none the worse for their brief brush with fame. ​“You’ve got to be careful,” Forster reminds the competitors. ​“Rule 13: be kind to worms.”

Ella Glossop is Huck’s social editor. Follow her on Bluesky.

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