A FREEFOLK-based flyball club conquered its competition last month on its way to being crowned national champions.

Dogs and handlers from the flyball team Wicked travelled to East Yorkshire for the British Flyball Association (BFA) championships, held across August 16-18, where the team outlasted dozens of others to win the tournament outright.

Flyball is a sport for dogs in which canines compete in relay race fashion, fetching a ball over a sequence of four jumps.

Wicked team captain, Erica Steele, says victory at the national championships was made even more memorable as it was a landmark edition of the competition.

“The best thing about this is the BFA has been going 25 years,” she said, “so we won the 25th anniversary trophy.

“So it was a big celebration not just for us but for the association as well.”

Erica says the level of competition was so high that she would have been happy just to finish in the top six.

She added: “Personally I felt here was other people better than us so to win it is just unbelievable and an amazing feeling. It took a while to sink in, it was a good couple of days [before it did]. And the dogs were absolutely amazing. They didn’t put a foot wrong.”

Wicked’s team was made up of a mixture of collies and crossbreeds.

Four of the dogs are also related – Sabre and Boba Fett are brothers, Wizz and Wickedy-BU are sisters, and Wizz is Sabre and Boba’s mum – making the victory all the more special.

To find out more about Wicked's flyball team, search for Wicked Flyball Club on Facebook.

Or for more information about the sport as a whole, visit the BFA website at flyball.org.uk