South Shields Surf Club set to host ‘Octuberfest’ competition on Sandhaven beach with 30 of the regions best surfers

The ‘Octuberfest’ competition, which is sponsored by Green Overhead, will take place on Saturday, October 22, and will see surfers from South Shields and the North East battle against one another as they look to take home some special prizes, with all entry money also going to support mental health charities.

The competition, taking place on Sandhaven beach will involve a number of different categories including the men’s competition, longboarding, whitewater, under-18s under-12s and even some fancy dress, before prizes donated by BURGeR and Surf Dek are given out to the winners.

Club chairman Aaron Kinghorn said: “For a long time the club has just been a group of like-minded surfers who enjoy doing the same thing.

"We’ve got a really good community in the local area and we’ve got some really good surfers. After doing a small competition within the club we decided to go even further and do one opening it up to the wider surfing community.

“It’s not just adults, we’ve got competitions going on for kids and beginners as well and it should be a really fun day.

"Competitions have become a natural outgrowth of what we want to do to connect with the community. Surfing is an Olympic sport now and we want to start taking it a bit more seriously, allowing young surfers to see there is a competitive element, while also still having fun and enjoying ourselves.”

South Shields Surf Club has over 70 members, offering weekly training sessions, surf trips, beach BBQs and often takes part in beach litter picks while South Shields Surf School offers lessons to surfers of all abilities.

Surfing made its debut as an Olympic sport at the Tokyo 2020 games, with Brazil taking home gold in the men’s competition and USA winning the top prize in the women’s competition.Conditions for the day are set to be ideal for surfing and ‘Octuberfest’ will take place on Saturday October 22, between 9am and 4.30pm, on Sandhaven Beach by South Shields Surf School.