Pancake races to be hosted by Wigan shopping centre

The Grand Arcade will be hosting the tournament between staff and tenants for the first time in its history this coming Shrove Tuesday (March 4) and it is the brainchild of the mall’s manager Mike Matthews.

As town centre manager years ago, Mike was a keen supporter of races and they were also very popular in the Galleries shopping centre back in the 1980s and ’90s, but they had gone out of fashion.

But he said: “It’s time to revive an old tradition. We’ve not had pancake races in the Grand Arcade before but that’s about to change.

"We used to do them in the Kirkby shopping centre and the became very competitive!”

Tenants and staff will be pitted against each other in a series of heats beginning at 10am, culminating in a final.

Contestants will walk as quickly as possible while continuously tossing their shop-bought pancakes in pans.

Mike said: “Why not pop down to the Grand Arcade? It shoudl be quite a spectacle!”