All or Nothing Scooter Club – 39th anniversary do

As a young 19-year-old, I never imagined that the scooter club would still be up and running some 39 years later. We have had some great people running the club, with a mix of young and older scooter riders that has always ensured that the club remains grounded. We’ve also lost several great members over the years: Dave Garratt, Jayne Smith, Craig Doyle, Gordon McFadyen and Graham Garratt.

We wouldn’t normally have two ska/reggae bands playing back to back at our parties but having had to change our plans for our end-of-year function, it meant that we owed the DekkerTones a booking, so it was only fair that they played for us at our anniversary do. The DekkerTones are an eight-piece covers band playing authentic ska and reggae, and took to the stage at 8.30pm for their first set which included fantastic tunes such as This is Ska, Guns of Navarone, Monkey Man, Israelites, You Can Get It if You Really Want and Night Boat to Cairo, to name just a few.

During the interlude, Paul Roberts spun a variety of tunes, bringing us an amazing array of music to entertain the crowd. We got the raffle out of the way, with eight lucky punters taking home a variety of prizes, including a fantastic alcohol basket kindly provided by Sandra Walton. A big thank you to everyone who contributed towards the raffle prizes, and to Tina and Jayne for sorting out the raffle.

At 10pm, the DekkerTones came back on for their second set, delivering a music masterclass from yesteryear with a variety of 2 Tone and reggae standards such as The Prince, Shanty Town, Chase the Devil, Phoenix City, 54-46, Nite Klub, finishing off the encore with Sally Brown.

A big thank you to the DekkerTones for some excellent live music to entertain us and a big apology from myself for the lack of stage lights.

On the whole a great night and two great performances from the DekkerTones. It was also good to be able to catch up with AONSC members past and present.

Thank you to everyone who supported us on the night, our friends from Nuneaton and Rugby, the Rugby Road Runners SC, the Heart of England SC, the CV Collective SC and the Silly Arses Scooter Lot who travelled up from Cornwall. Special thanks to all the members of the DekkerTones and Paul Roberts for entertaining us.

Finally, a big thank you to Matthew Benson and all the members of the All or Nothing Scooter Club, for still going all these years and putting on another great event. Brian Forde

Kingy

CAs a young 19-year-old, I never imagined that the scooter club would still be up and running some 39 years later.