Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band

[OC Richard]

Sorry dear Father if I sounded snarky, it was not my intention, and I deleted that line from my post.

On piping sites people from various non-UK piping communities, especially North America, have long been calling for holding The Worlds somewhere else in the world every now and then (every five years, or what have you).

I have disagreed with that. It's simple: if you were to stick a pushpin in a world map for every Competition pipe band it would become immediately obvious that the greatest number of bands, the highest concentration of bands, is in Scotland and Northern Ireland. So the UK is the obvious place to have the World Pipe Band Championships.

On the other hand it's patently absurd to have the British Championships, the UK Championships, the European Championships, and the World Championships all in the same country year after year.

It would be like FIFA holding the European Cup and the World Cup perpetually in Switzerland.

What I have long called for is for The World Pipe Band Championships, for they alone are regularly attended by bands from all over the world, who cannot attend any of the other "Majors", to be divorced from the Scottish system of Majors, and to be a stand-alone true World championship. I think the qualifying for The Worlds should be based solely on a band's performance at the previous year's Worlds, not on the other Majors which only UK and Irish bands can attend.

(BTW bands from Eire are "overseas" bands, bands from Norn Iron are not, though they both cross the same strip of water to attend.)