My Teams

During the late 70s lots of match fishing teams were popping up all over the country, but the finest team of all time must be the brilliant Barnsley Blacks, who were really Barnsley A.A but got the nickname via Dennis White. Through the leadership of Dick Clegg, who captained the team, they won almost everything in front of them. There was so much talent around this area other teams were formed and one which I later became a member of, was Smithies A.C. They were based in the Barnsley area and attracted very good anglers who could not quite get into the Barnsley team.     

 Click    photo ,s of The Young and old Barnsley Blacks

The Barnsley Blacks were and still are in my opinion the best team in the country but I must give  Rotherham  A. A  the credit for bringing in team colors .They were the first team I ever saw with all the same tops on which were just plain Green padded body warmers with a round Raiders logo embroided on to the jacket which had one or two other teams taking the mickey but they were the pioneers in that department ,I can still see most of the old team now in their green raiders jackets ,Big Jack Pugh ,Dennis Wylde , Geoff Newby and co who were a tremendous team in there own right and went on to win the national on the Welland and Coronation Channel , Halken Hunt have a lot to thank The Raiders for as every Angling Club in the country now has there own colors.  

While club match fishing and winning often at Highgate club and Thurnscoe Cora club, my old friend Keith Dowle phoned me and asked myself and Russ Fowler to join them. Smithies were promoted to division 1 in 5 seasons and have since folded. The quality of the anglers attracted offers from other clubs with better sponsorships, which you could not blame them for leaving as match angling must be one of the most expensive sports around but Smithies A.C gave me some of the best memories and laughs in my life and one heartache when after doing really well in the practice week on the Yorkshire Ouse I scored 8 points in my section but weighing in 1 tiny fish instead of a dry net got us promotion as we just made it by 6 points.
While we were at Smithies, myself, Russ Fowler, Bob Beswick and Peter Taylor all from Goldthorpe decided to break away and set up our own team which we named Goldthorpe A.C.
I did not realize how much work was involved in setting up a new side but with Bob Beswick doing all the paperwork and Russ with his influence getting good anglers to join plus the local young talent i,e  Mick Humphreys   Garry Jubb  and a sponsorship from Silstar we were soon up and running and off on our journey
through the divisions we went..

During our first few months setting up Goldthorpe , Barnsley A.C invited Russ to go and join them and after some thought he could not say no to joining the best team in the country but he helped all he could with the construction of a team which has become one of the most talented Teams in the country.

After a very successful first  year in limited team events due to the fact that that it was our first year and we could not fish a National it was obvious to all this team was for real and in came Tackle Giants Daiwa to offer us a sponsor ship we could not refuse and although we were sorry to leave Silstar after just 1 year we could not refuse the offer from Daiwa so off we went on our journey with a great set of lads and a major sponsor , Who could stop us ?

Our first national was on the Forty foot and Middle level drains where we practiced in red hot weather and stayed in a superb guest house run by Tony Wilson, who was an original Barnsley Black and a right character. I can still see him riding his push bike up the road in his Fred Perry shorts shouting who was catching and what they were catching on, and nobody was prouder than Tony when we won the national and it gave me my first Gold medal.

The fourth division on the Nene was my favorite, superb weather again and absolutely bagging with the eel method we had sussed early in the week .Gary Jubb won a match 2 Saturdays before the national with 14 lbs of snotsticks. I knew we would win that one and we did with record points and my second Gold medal.

Russ was back from the Barnsley Blacks, after a very successful 2 years for the 3rd division Trent national and a good practice week on our home water we got thinking about a hatrick of Gold medals but this was the start of the decline of the Trent and knew the draw bag would play a big part in winning and we could only manage 8th but promoted again and Roger Mortimers  Keenets Central won their first Gold after being second best to us the last 2 years but being coached by the great John Allerton went along way. Click to see 

The 2nd division on the Gloucester canal gave us another brilliant practice week and coached by Daiwa Gordon League made life easier. During the close season we arranged a trip down to meet Daiwa Gordon League and they took us around the canal to get us familiar with it  We liked what we saw and fancied it  to get promoted straight through the divisions  We caught on every method during practice , pole to slider as it is very deep in some areas. We could not wait for the national and we finished fourth 3 points behind 3rd and not many more from winning it , We had got promoted to division one in successive years.

Daiwa Goldthorpe has gone on to be one of the top sides in the country and has arguably the best national record in the country. even being invited to world club championships at holme pierpoint in Nottingham where I had a great 3rd in my section the first day then on the second day i drew the peg which had the worst wheight in all of day 1

While at Goldthorpe, myself, Russ Fowler and Bob Beswick worked out a method which won 6 out of 6 Barnsley winter league matches at Worsboro Res which was one superb achievement as they were sell outs every week and has never been done before or since. After we had won 3 the committee decided to alter the way they drew the pegs as at first we drew a ticket with 3 tickets joined together and fished where we wanted but they altered it to drawing the ticket and then you had to draw again in front of another team to see where you fished out of the three tickets but it did not alter anything and we mopped up just the same ,TALK about a method !!