“THE UNTHINKABLE WIN – GOLD IN ITALY!”

We delved into our archives for this interview from 1985 soon after Dick secured the first major honours of his management career

“We won by a point and the Italians were shocked”

I’D LIKE to say that I was broken into the England job easily, but that wasn’t the case! I got the job in May 1984 and the World Champs was in Switzerland in September, so it was all a bit of a rush. To tie for top spot and lose out on weight, ending up with a silver medal, was terrific but I was soon looking at 1985 event in Italy on Florence’s River Arn. It doesn’t get any harder than trying to beat Italy in their own back yard.

At that time, there was no official practice week before the match. We had to travel out a fortnight before, fish for a week and then return just before the weekend of the match.

The Italians were true all-round masters and were seen as the ones to beat. I took the team who had done so well in Switzerland the year before as I thought ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, so I travelled with Denis White, Tommy Pickering, Bob Nudd, Kevin Ashurst, Ian Heaps, Dave Roper and Alan McAtee.

Information suggested there were a lot of chub in the river plus some carp and carassio, so I felt it suited us well. We drew really well. Tommy and Bob were above a bridge in chub areas while Kevin was in an area with some carp and carassio to go for. My main concern was where Denis and Ian were, on a section that went from 6ft to 18ft deep! Few chub lived here and catfish seemed to be the main target. In practice, Denis had brought some redworms with him and caught really well on the slider float. We learned that the Italians actually fished to avoid the catfish! I’d say that went a long way to winning the gold medal for us.

As the match unfolded I always felt it was close between us and Italy, and I remember Alan running across the Ponte Alla Vittoria bridge saying that Bob was struggling. I went over, had a chat with him, a few changes were made and that got him an extra point. I’m not saying my tactical masterstroke won the match, but people can think so if they want!

We won by a point, and the Italians were shocked and a bit begrudging as everyone had expected them to stroll home.

We’d achieved what even I thought was impossible or, at least, very, very hard to do – winning in Italy. That still remains one of the high points of my fishing career.