ARTHUR’S ARCHIVE
Archivist Keith looks back at the rise and fall of an iconic milestone in match fishing history – the National Championships...
“For most, National Champs meant a day out on the club coach”
THE National Championships used to be the highlight of every club angler’s year.
The big clubs in crack match fishing areas had top teams but, for most, it was a day out on the club coach and a change from just fishing against each other.
The draw was a massive thing: everyone pitched up at a huge venue. I’ve been to airports, showgrounds, factories – where they found anything up to 40 buses and coaches waiting to take them to their section.
In some cases, like the one pictured at Newark Dyke in 1945, even barges were used. Woe betide if you – literally – missed the bus, because only official transport was allowed. This fate befell the late, great Jimmy Randell of Essex County fame in the 1974 Welland event. He had to walk to his peg with his tackle, a journey covering an estimated seven miles that took him two hours... and all for a dry net!
I enjoyed some great Nationals and have a small clutch of individual, section and team medals to look back on with fond memories. The best and worst were a very close second on the Trent 40 years ago, which compensated for the worst two years previously when I had an awful peg on the Bristol Avon that coughed up a minnow and an 8oz eel. Astonishingly, I drew the same spot three years later on the Bristol Avon Championship. At least I learned something about the peg on the National, as I managed a whopping 2lb 11oz that day!
The increase in popularity of Nationals when small match groups were allowed to join, seeing at one time six divisions with one event having 103 teams, dissipated with, in my opinion, the events losing their importance to club anglers.
The ‘day on the coach’ became ‘a cluster of cars’ and now the two surviving divisions don’t attract as many competitors as the All England in 1971.
Such a shame.