Bristol Commercial House League - The Early Years

In 1973 a Mr Colin Golding started as a sub-contract Draughtsman at Masson Scott Thrissell Engineering (MST) in the next drawing office to mine. He was an angling hero because he had been selected to fish for the England World Coarse Fishing Championship Team. Colin had just come back from the match in France and we spent some time hiding behind drawing boards chatting fishing. Colin didn’t get to fish any of the championship matches, being reserve both days. However, England did finish third. Colin pictured below with the rest of the England Team.

Over the years I have been honoured to have fished in the same matches as five of the above.

At the time I was the secretary of the MST Angling club and Colin encouraged me to put a team into the Bristol Commercial House League (BCHL) ran then by John James and Brian Britt. We did this in 1973 managing to cobble together a team which consisted of regulars: Me, Dad, Ron Gaulton, Chris Gaulton, Les Evans and various members of the club whom I nagged into fishing – some of the lads pictured right (taken on the free stretch of the Bristol Avon above Weston Lock).

The MST club decided to affiliate with Bathampton AA (BAA) enabling us to have four matches a year on any of their waters. This required me to attend monthly BAA committed meeting at the Charmbury Arms in Bath.  I looked forward to these meetings as I was able to talk match fishing with one of the top six anglers in the country – Mike Jones, not that he was that forth coming!! Back then the Committee were all top match men except the Treasurer who didn’t fish.

Colin was right the BCHL proved a good league to develop match fishing experience. As time went by I couldn’t maintain a MST team so had to pull out. However, I soon signed up for other teams and continued to fish the league for over for 30 years for these teams: - MST, Rolls Royce, DRG, Jayne’s Contractors and Fry’s.

With most of the matches being fished on the lower Avon and 50% of those on the Fry’s stretch (free peg fee for BCHL) a part of the Avon I came to love because you never knew where the winner would come from week to week a fairish section with each swim having its own character. Topper Haskins also loved it fathering many, if not all of the names for the swims.

The Bay, The Stream, Arm Chair, Opposite the Carp Hole, The Gully, Blackberry Bush, The Straight, The Calvert, The Barge, The Lone Tree, The National Swim, Cow Dip, The Trees, The Stump, Sugar Hole (A small stream which Topper swore he could smell chocolate in it).

So if I drew a peg two above the Arm Chair I could more or less walk straight to it, which was important as none of the swims were short walks.

The BCHL was a very strong league with plenty of great anglers. The following is Media coverage of some matches which I managed to framed in during those early years: -