The story starts with me. In 1976 I was a Committee member and officer of Bathampton AA, holding the position of Match Secretary, which I had just taken over from Mike Jones. I will never forget Mike Jones and me pegging the 315 pegs needed for the Bathampton Christmas match on the Saturday and Mike taking forth place on the Sunday. Mike usually gave his winning hampers to a local charity.
In the same year Bathampton AA took the decision to affiliate with the National Federation of Anglers (NFA). As Match Secretary I was expected to build and manage a team to contest the next NFA third division national. Lucky enough it was to be fished on the River Huntspill, King Sedgemoor Drain and South Drain. This was at a time when the Huntspill was a very popular match venue holding events regularly with in excess of 150 anglers participating from all over the country. I believed that with the right anglers Bathampton AA could win this national first time out. I knew the anglers that could achieve this. However, they were split between a many clubs.
In 1972 Richard Coles (pictured right - yes - he had more than one chin back then) and a few of his mates from the Bath AA club – Clive Summers, Hughie Evans, Terry Norris, Roger Newman and Chris Ollis - got together a six man team to fish a local Mini League. They called themselves the “Casters”. They soon made their presence felt, winning the league first time out and continued to succeed in the following years.Richard then decided to build a bigger squad to enter in the Angling Times South West Winter League (ATSWWL). They chose to fish under the Bathampton AA club banner. With Bathampton already having a team fishing the league, so was born the Bathampton B team. More success followed for Richard and his team, when in 1974 Bathampton B won the ATSWWL title. However, they couldn’t quite make it through to the final.
I immediately looked to the Bathampton B team as the nucleus for my national team. However, they needed strengthening with a bias to the particular venue. I identified two highly respected
anglers which I believed were paramount to getting others to follow. These were Mike Jones (pictured right) and Mervyn “Topper” Haskins (pictured lower right). Both were then fishing for the City of Bristol winter league team, as were some of the other anglers I had identified. Well, it took me for what seemed ages to get them to switch. In the end I 
think it was Mike Jones’s allegiance to Bathampton AA that swayed it, as he was still an active Bathampton Committee member. I finally got them to agree. However, the top men on the Huntspill (now referred to as “venue experts”) were Joss Saunders, Dave Searle, Graham Pepper and Malcolm Levy all from Bridgwater (or there about). As some were also City of Bristol team men they quickly followed Mike and Topper. I had the opportunity to include my self in the team, however, due to family and work commitments I chose to remain as Team Manager. There was no way I could spend the amount of time and money the team had committed to spend on the river bank. I finally got the squad together that I believed could take the title:Richard Coles (Captain)
Mike Jones
Topper Haskins
Joss Saunders
Dave Searle
Graham Pepper
Clive Summers
Hughie Evans
Roger Newman
Terry Norris
Chris Ollis
Nick “The Stick” Iles
Malcolm Levy
Eddie Shortman
Glyn Brace
Tom “The Bomb” Coulston
Bob Warren
Gordon Jones
You wouldn’t bet against this team today!
Well they practiced endlessly, at every opportunity. The practice started to pay off as the teams members were framing in all the practice matches right up to the day. There were many areas on the Huntspill where only small Eels could be caught, for which, we had a method sorted. As the team had now become 2 to 1 favourites it was necessary to keep the method close to our chests. I can now reveal that the method was to “lay-on” close in to the bank with very sensitive balsa wagglers fashioned by Malcolm Levy, Dave Searle and Joss Saunders, very similar to the larger versions still used today. The bait of double squatt would drag nicely up the inside margin, which was fished on a 13 foot float rod.
Well practice do make perfect – BUT, we didn’t plan for the drown poor of cold overnight rain. We were all disappointed to find the fish not responding as planned, particularly the Eels. We managed a lowly and disappointing thirteenth place.
With the Bathampton AA squad now fully established and an opportunity for me to still join the squad I decided now was the best time for me to step back and leave the management in the capable hands of Rich Coles and Mike Jones. Family life was the real decider, as I had two young sons. Looking back I made the right decision, proof of this is that it’s our Ruby Wedding next year in 2010.
But the story continues.
With this match now behind them and lessons learnt, they looked forward to the 1977 third division being fished on the River Trent. Again after lots of travelling and practice they just missed out on promotion, finishing in eleventh place. They missed out on promotion by just one place.
The next national in 1978 was to be fished on River Witham, which was similar to the River Huntspill in many ways; Eels and Bream and no natural flow. In 1978 also saw the first division national being fished on our home waters the Bristol Avon. They saw, and took the opportunity to exchange information with the Barnsley Blacks, Tom Pickering, Jim Baxter and Edgar Purnell, whose local river happen to be the River Witham. This proved a successful for both teams. On August 23 1978 Bathampton AA took the Third Division National title beating 73 other teams. They did it with a combined weight of 33lb 13oz 4drams and accumulated 806 team points.
The match was expected to be dominated by bloodworm. However, Edgar Purnell put the team on to small immature chrysodine maggots on 22 hooks fished over loose fed squatt. This proved to be the key as the bloodworm failed to produce as expected.
The winning team is (pictured right) with the NFA Division Three trophy:
Back row L to R: Glyn Brace, Jimmy Norris, Clive Summers, Hughie Evans, Dave Searle, Roger Newman, Joss Saunders, Graham Pepper.Front Row L to R: Malcolm Levy, Chris Ollis, Rich Coles (Captain) and Tom Coulston.
You will notice that Mike Jones was missing from the team line up. Mike chose to fish the national on his beloved Bristol Avon for Stockport Federation.
In the same year Bathampton AA were also competing in the East Anglian Cup (later to be the Captain Morgan Cup, then the DFDS Cup). This was a very sought after cup and was considered the FA Cup of the Angling world. All the top Teams throughout the country challenged through knockout stages. It was a team on team contest based on weight. Bathampton AA won through to the final beating teams Stephens Talisman of Swindon, North Somerset and West Wiltshire, Harleston of Norfolk, Burton Mutual. With further help from Tom Pickering and Dennis White of the won the final against Lincoln. The match was fished on the river Trent at North Muskham on the 25 November 1978. Bathampton AA more than doubled the weight of Lincoln, who was favourites to win. Bathampton weighed 28lb 15oz whilst Lincoln could only manage 14lb 1oz. The team picked up a winner’s cheque of £2,500 and of course the “Angling FA Cup”.The squad are (pictured right with the East Anglian Trophy). Their individual weights were:
Roger Newman 2-12-0
Hughie Evans 1-13-0
Ray Sims 3-2-4
Nicky Isles 4-12-0
Mike Jones (Captain) 6-14-4
Robin Smith 2-9-8
Clive Summers 1-12-0
Paul Dicks 1-0-0
Jimmy Norris 1-1-0
Topper Haskins 1-4-0
Gordon Jones 0-9-0
Rich Coles 1-5-0
Lincoln had returned good practice catches using caster and were confident in this choice of bait for the big day. However, Bathampton chose to go after the Chub using 2 ½ BB stick floats and bronze maggot. As fate would have it; there was a hard overnight frost which turned the tactics in favour of the maggot and gave Bathampton AA; sweet revenge for the disappointment of the Huntspill.
So in 1978 Bathampton had done a “Cup double” – Third Division National Champions and East Anglian Cup Winners. However, it didn’t end here.
With Bathampton AA now promoted to division two, as fate would have it the NFA second division national was again to be fished on the River Witham on the 18th August 1979 with 80 teams competing. Could Bathampton win again? Well in was the closest ever recorded national with a points tie for first place between Bathampton AA and Little Lever AA. Both teams tallied 746 points each. However, Bathampton made it two NFA National wins in consecutive years beating Littler Lever AA on weight.
Bathampton AA 32lb 2oz: Little Lever AA 30lb 1½ oz.
The winning squad is (pictured right) and the Team card read:
Section A. Glyn Brace 1-2-0 – 62 points
B. Jimmy Norris 0-1-12 – 2
C. Dave Searle 1-11-0 – 76
D. Malcolm Levy 2-14-8 – 80 (section win)
E. Edie Shortman 1-9-12 - 66
F. Roger Newman 2-4-8 – 63
G. Tom Coulston 3-15-4 – 73
H. Hughie Evans 5-12-12 – 80 (section win)
J. Chris Ollis 1-15-8 – 53
K. Nicky Isles 4-3-0 – 78
L. Joss Saunders 0-1-8 – 41
M. Graham Pepper 6-6-8 – 72 (11th overall)
If you wondering why the Captain didn’t fish; here it is in his own words: “I left myself out because I am a coward. I could not bear to leave any of the lads out of the line-up”.
Malcolm Levy before the match pledged that if Bathampton AA won again he would jump off Kirkstead Bridge. True to his word Malcolm (pictured right jumping from Kirkstead Bridge and lower left what the papers said - thats what you call jumping in; unlike today's anglers jumping in to a three foot deep pond on top of a boat disguised as a £25,000 cheque) stripped down to under pants and jumped. I understand that from that day onwards Malcolm had problems with his ears; I am not surprised. In another chapter I will cover another “jump” from County Bridge in Keynsham.
Formation of this team and realising my ambitions for Bathampton AA is one of the high-lights of my angling career.
2 comments:
enjoying the history lesson
Brilliant Mike, keep it up. Rich (Rigsby)
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