Disappointment and tears for racers who turned up to Northampton Fun Colour Rush to find it had been cancelled

People flocked to Abington Park in Northampton this weekend to participate in the Fun Colour Rush only to find that it had been cancelled.

The Northampton Fun Colour Rush 2021 was supposed to take place on the morning of Saturday, September 4 from 9.30am until 1.30pm.

The annual popular fundraising event invites participants to run, walk or dance around a five kilometer course at Abington Park - all to raise money for their individually chosen charities.

However, more than 100 participants arrived at the park on Saturday morning to find that, much to their confusion, there was no sign of the event taking place.

One of the perplexed participants, Rich Watson, told the Chronicle & Echo: "We turned up on Saturday morning along with a hundred or so others to find there was nothing going on.

"There were no signs up and none of us had received an email cancelling the event. A runner who had parked behind us said she had been sponsored to do the event so was really disappointed.

"There were children there dressed up and ready to run and their parents were trying to locate a phone number to find out what was going on. We had a nine year old in our team in tears as she had been training over the summer school holiday for the event."

More residents came forward and claimed they received no emails from the Fun Colour Rush event organisers to notify them that the event had been cancelled and, as a result, they arrived at the park only to be disappointed.

One reader, however, shared a screenshot of an exchange he had with the Fun Colour Rush Facebook page through direct messages on Friday evening.

In the exchange, a spokesperson for the Fun Colour Rush event said that the event was postponed until next year due to complications arising from coronavirus. The spokesperson also claimed that two emails were sent out to participants to reduce confusion.

Although this exchange took place on Friday night (September 3) - the day before the event was due to take place - tickets for the following day were still on sale to the public at this point.

All was not lost for the racers, who were raring to go on Saturday morning.

Rich added: "We ran the park circuit anyway and lots of other disappointed local people in the British spirit made the most of it by buying ice creams and enjoyed the morning sunshine."

The Fun Colour Rush event organisers have been contacted for comment.