Although I enjoyed dancing with Manchester Morris Men it became quite frustrating that although they had a large membership they frequently were unable to get enough members at bookings and events to make up a team to dance Lancashire morris dances and so much of the time I found that we could only dance Cotswold dances which was not what I had joined the team to do. I soon realised that other younger members of the team felt the same way so in 1976 I founded a new team based in Bolton to dance exclusively dances from Lancashire and the North West.
We found a practice hall in Deane and named the team “The Rumworth Morris”. At first we met fortnightly alternating practices with Manchester Morris Men but after a few months we left Manchester Morris Men and began to meet every week. An article in the local newspaper attracted enough new members to have a full team and after 18 months practising we made our first public appearance at an event in Rivington Lower Barn.
Since then the team has established an excellent reputation for performing and maintaining the North West Morris tradition and continues to be acknowledged as one of its leading exponents in the country. This is reflected in the number of invitations to local, regional, national and international events.
The team has developed a repertoire of ten dances including ones which have been collected from traditional men’s teams around the North West and some original dances based on figures closely associated with the North West Morris dance tradition.
There is more information on the team, its history and the dances at www.rumworthmorris.org.uk