HERE it comes – that conundrum that crops up every so often – when is an event actually a sport?

The debate was sparked again on The Press sports-desk this week when notified of a medal success by a national team based in North Yorkshire.

The event was the European under-25s tug of war championships and a team from Norton, representing England, won the men’s 560-kilogramme title beating Sweden in the final.

The Tug Of War Association – I confess to not being aware beforehand of the august organisation – reveals how tug of war has provided many a memorable success for England and Great Britain.

Indeed it is an event which has a keen Olympic Games heritage. It featured in no fewer than five Olympiads between 1900 and 1920. And in that era British teams won the gold medal not once, but twice.

After the last of those Olympiads in Antwerp, the International Olympic Committee opted to trim the number of athletes taking part, so several events were jettisoned, among them tug of war.

But while tug of war was ditched from the pinnacle of then purely amateur sport, its origins stretch back millennia to ancient cultures from Egypt, Borneo and South America.

The Tug Of War Association, the national governing body, was formed more recently in 1958 with an international federation established just two years later.

This year the European Championships were held in Minehead. Next year’s world championship will bring teams from across the globe to Perth in Scotland. A rich tradition indeed.

But is tug of war a sport?

It is definitely physically demanding. It is certainly competitive. It pitches athletic teams against each other and it is an event that can be participated in both outdoors and indoors.

No contest then? It surely must be recognised as a sport? However, to this columnist the answer has to be a firm no.

Now, I know if I were to be challenged to compete I would find it as strenuous and exacting as any “sport” I have attempted – save perhaps for boxing, and mercifully that was an extremely brief experience.

For me tug of war is a pastime rather than a sport.

I cannot see any difference between tug of war and the serried ranks of devotees and practitioners of the likes of quoits, skittles, shove ha’penny, dominoes, chess, draughts, and, therefore…even snooker and darts.

Yes, I know York boasts one of the most formidable darts’ fraternities not just in North Yorkshire, nor simply the north of England, but in the entire country.

And, naturally, I am only too aware the UK Snooker Championships, second only in importance to the world championships, are making a well-overdue and welcome return to the city of York later this year.

Both events demand an unparalleled skill level. Even I, a myopic sceptic and sometime cynic, marvel at the near-perfect proficiency of dreadnought ‘dartist’ Phil “The Power” Taylor and the amazing green-baize potter wizardry of Ronnie O’Sullivan.

But for this sports-loving soul, the arcing of a tungsten-shafted, feathered-flight from the oche to dart-board, or the circumspect wandering around a six-holed table wielding a stick, does not constitute sport.

Maybe it’s more down to the spectator value of those aforementioned sports. Watching wine age, or frost form, or bench varnish harden, provides almost as much appeal as seeing where a dart lands or a coloured ball drops.

That flaw cannot be readily attributed to tug of war, which is a contest that screams out for maximum endeavour and a significant degree of expertise.

But while its attritional merit tends to test patience, if I am being honest, tug of war has a resonance more as a traditional English pastime.

To me it is an activity more suited to frenzied but friendly blurs of commotion on a village green complete with maypole, tombola, orange cordial and scones, with morris dancing too as a rival attraction to the huffing and puffing of controlling a thick rope better than opponents.

If sporting logic is to be rationally applied and tug of war declared a sport, then surely that should mean bell-ringing be accorded similar status. After all, that’s also just hauling on a rope, isn’t it?