Hi recently I have found my cage is too wide for the bench both at Leeds and City of Birmingham, can anyone advise the normal width for one of the larger utility breeds/  I am worried in case I get to Crufts and find my cage won't fit, should I buy a front and top before hand?  Sorry I am new to showing and keep getting conflicting advise.

I think for Crufts they have the bench size in the schedule, if you go on the KC website i'm pretty sure the minimum sizes are on there

spotsrule, I had exactly the same problem at Birmingham, the size of the bench for our breed was distinctly on the ungenerous side. We were right at the far end of the ground and at the far end of the car park, so it was a struggle hefting bags, crate and a second trip for dogs. We are always at or very near the end, and this time a wonderful couple swapped their end place and even put up the crate for me while I went back for the three dogs. I can't begin to say how grateful I was for their help, they were real good Samaritans. I guess my point is that you might be able to swap with the person at the end of the bench since that slot is usually wider.

The benching areas at Crufts have really wide aisles, unless you are at the side facing the ring then that gets congested with spectators.  Anyway everyone with large and x large crates that don't fit on the benching stil have loads of space to put them on the floor in front of their bench.  Many of the foreign exhibitors are not used to benching anyway and they all turn up with crates.