ARTHUR’S ARCHIVE

IDON’T go back this far in my match fishing career, but I recall this type of National Championship with great affection.

These blokes never knew what fishing clothes were, because they were work clothes. The only other clobber in the wardrobe was Sunday best… and Nationals have always been on a Saturday.

This photo is of the draw for the 1961 version of what was then still known as the ‘All England’, fished on the River Trent around Gunthorpe. There were no divisions to worry about, no “got to have a week off work to practise” – just turn up with your basket, a bag of breadcrumb and bucket of maggots. Hemp was beyond the pocket of many, and so was banned accordingly. I recall fishing the Trent when hemp wasn’t allowed – in fact, I’m fairly sure on my first National there, in 1980, it was banned by one club, so it wasn’t allowed on any sections!

Saltaire AA’s Jack Blakey won the event with 23lb 12oz 12dr of roach ‘to 9oz’, standing up trotting with maggots in classic Trent style for the duration of the match, feeding six pints in the process! At just 23 he was possibly the youngest-ever National Champion at the time and was on the famous outfall peg at Burton Joyce, in the days when sewage was sewage!

The outstanding Coventry District AA – the Barnsley Blacks of the day – took the team trophies with a 12-man combined weight of just over 77lb. Their outstanding bag was taken by the incredible Billy Lane, who drew the notorious Shelford Shallows.

Billy used his famous ‘Trent Trotter’, a cork-bodied Avon float cut off just below the body and locked in place by 2BB, with a No4 set just off bottom, fished 18ins overdepth. The genius bit was to add a No4 or BB at a distance ABOVE the float equal to double the depth. This shot dragged the bottom, slowing the float down the peg. He finished with 17lb 4oz, even though stewards had to regularly dig out the gravel under his keepnet to keep his catch swimming!

No Gore-Tex clothing or other branded clobber in sight!

ALL BETS ARE ON!

“The only other clobber in the wardrobe was Sunday best”