GREATEST MATCHES Holme Pierrepont, 1994
On a rock-hard Holme Pierrepont in 1994, Dick Clegg’s lads fought their way to glory
FOR a man who has overseen winning six World Champs titles, former Drennan Team England boss Dick Clegg has an easy answer when asked which one is his favourite. “1994, Holme Pierrepont” is always the Yorkshireman’s decisive answer.
England were one of the fancied teams on the rowing course just outside Nottingham, and included in their ranks were Alan Scotthorne, Steve Gardener and double individual World Champ Bob Nudd.
Yet, the win was a bittersweet one for the home team. Yes, they’d won and seen Nudd take his third World title, but the fishing was atrocious.
Some of the world’s best match anglers caught nothing, while others resorted to using a landing net to ensure a tiny gudgeon or perch went into the keepnet. The mickey-taking by the watching English fans might have raised a smile, but deep down they knew that they were watching a disaster.
The reasons for Holme Pierrepont’s poor form have been much discussed, but across that weekend in September there was still a match to be won and a method to be sorted out – and that’s where England excelled.
The chances of catching on the pole were minimal in many areas, so England’s plan revolved around fishing the waggler, feeding little balls of leam holding joker, and fishing bloodworm on the hook.
Perch became the target fish, replacing the hoped-for roach and bream and suddenly, weights of 1kg became a good result.
“This win was our most important result.
It’s on a level with beating the Italians in Florence back in 1985,” Dick recalls.
“It was the icing on a cake that already had cream on it from previous victories, but it was a shame about the problems the venue suffered in the run-up to the matches. A huge number of cormorants had descended on the venue, and these caused a massive decline in the fishing. At one point we counted 104 birds.”
With a plan in place, England got down to work and the opening exchanges on the Saturday were promising. Kim Milsom, making his World Champs debut, caught a run of perch on the pole and bloodworm from A section, Denis White and Steve Gardener also finding perch on pole and waggler in sections B and E, while Bob Nudd winkled out four perch from a tough D section that saw 23 of the 30 anglers blank.
“That all added up to 23 points, a great score under the circumstances, but it was Alan Scotthorne who I was most worried about,” Dick said.
“He only had two bites in C section, and one of those fish came off. He ended up blanking. That’s a blow, but we all knew that
few teams would avoid at least one blank. Going into day two we were third, 12 points behind leaders Sweden.”
Sunday dawned and England sprinted into the lead. Denis White in A section, Alan Scotthorne in B section, Bob Nudd in C section and Steve Gardener in D section all took fish within the opening hour and the crowd and Dick sniffed a possible gold.
Day one leaders Sweden fell by the wayside and that allowed France to claw their way into contention as Jean-Jacques Chaumet, Jean Desque, Didier Guessard and Phillipe Jean all caught.
For Kim Milsom, though, the match had made a U-turn. After a good opening day, a lost perch after 15 minutes seemed to suggest he was on his way to a blank.
“We were relying on the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Fougeat to blank, but we also managed to nick points off the other French lads by catching the odd fish,” Dick recalls. “Kim looked like he would blank but so did Fougeat, so it came down to what we could do in the other sections. One extra point was always going to make a massive difference.”
At the final hooter, few were in the picture as to the result. England tallied up a muchimproved 39 points, four of the five team returning an incredible nine points! The usual adding up and gleaning of info from other teams resulted in England believing they’d won by four points, something confirmed shortly afterwards. With Bob Nudd also returning two section wins to take individual gold, it was the best result anyone could have wished for. In pouring rain, the crowds failed to disperse, and England accepted both trophies.