GRIMETHORPE Colliery (UK Coal) Band are the brass band champions of Yorkshire.

They won the title with a stunning performance of Richard Wagner's Overture to the Opera Rienzi in the battle of the giants in St George's Hall, Bradford, yesterday.

National Champions Black Dyke (Dr Nicholas Childs) were runners-up with YBS (Professor David King) in third place.

Brighouse and Rastrick (James Gourlay) were fourth, and with Dyke and YBS having automatic entry to the October final in view of their placing in last year's Royal Albert Hall encounter, the first four bands will represent Yorkshire in October.

The really good news for Huddersfield came in Section 3 where Grange Moor (Duncan Beckley) took the top honour followed by Slaithwaite (Barry Hudson) in second place.

Those two will represent the county in the Harrogate finals in September. Both were in last year's finals and both are now in line for promotion to Section 2.

Saturday, the first day of the Championships, didn't go at all well for Huddersfield with disappointment in Section 1 where Marsden finished third, just one point away from a place in the final.

The Colne Valley band was conducted by Glyn Williams, who was making his first showing in the Yorkshire Championships. In Section 4, Emley finished fourth.

Returning to the Championship class battle, and here Hepworth (Persimmon Homes) (Mark Bentham) found a very creditable fifth place, with Sellers International (Phillip McCann) filling sixth position. The town's other contenders in this extremely stiff class didn't fare too well.

Interestingly, in the five-section Championships, Meltham and Meltham Mills, Holme Silver (Disposables UK) and Pennine Brass all played off No 1 in their respective sections. Meltham are making a habit of being first on stage.

As was reported last Monday, Hade Edge (J & E Dickinson) are being filmed for a series of five 30-minute programmes to be screened by Yorkshire Television from September, and the hall was buzzing all day yesterday with camera crews and sound technicians.