Following the ‘success’ of the previous year I was told by John W early in the summer of 1987 that great interest had been shown in joining the team for that autumn. It seemed to me that, having found something outside of both home and work that I could look forward to each year, I was in danger of missing out on this through the ‘lottery’ of a selection match.
In the course of this conversation I learned that John had been required by the constitution of the Bank Sports Club to check with the Secretary of the BarclayTrust Association (to which all Trust Company staff belonged automatically) each year that I was free to fish for him. The rule was that subsidiary Companies such as BBTC had first call on their own staff but if not required they could fish for the geographical Bank Region in which they worked. Knowing this, and that there had been no Trust Company team in any of the three competitions that I already been in, I decided that the best way to ensure attendance at Hastings was to form my own team. I could then control the selection process and, as captain, pick myself each year!
This was obviously a brilliant idea, if for no other reason than that the plan has worked for eleven consecutive matches now and the fact that I may now have reached the end of the line is down to Corporate strategic decisions entirely outside of my control!(Written in 1997, DS)
Of course to form a team you need other members and knowing that there were no interested parties at either the Norwich or Chelmsford offices I had to resort to advertising (i.e. sending out a ‘Sports and Social’ circular to all Trust Company offices). This brought forth only a single joint reply from David Sh and Ian H both then at the Eastbourne Office and (I hoped) with plenty of practice at fishing on the South Coast. I already knew Ian from a 1980 tax course. While I was unable to find a fourth member for the team I went ahead with arranging our entry and for the organiser, Basil S, to book accommodation for us. I also arranged with John W to ‘cadge’ a lift in his minibus as we were all going from the same area.
Incidentally, it transpired that the anticipated rush of applications for my place in the team did not materialise and I was, eventually, replaced by John’s son Andrew who had just joined the Bank. Frank C and Geoff T also returned – Kelvin and Mike not being available this time.
Shortly before the match I discovered that because Eastbourne was so close to Hastings the Bank would not sanction an overnight stay for David and Ian despite the fact that the after-match presentation dinner could run on quite late. As this would have meant them having to travel early Friday morning and for one of them at least to refrain from drinking after the match I felt that this was rather unfair on them. I decided that I would let the booking stand and worry about it later.
Two weeks or so before the match took place the UK suffered the infamous October 1987 gales, which struck the South coast of England particularly fiercely. The Queens Hotel where we were to stay was, we found out later, very badly hit, with one resident being killed by part of the roof falling in on his room and carrying everything down another floor until stopped by the strongroom ceiling of the Barclays branch which occupied the ground floor of the building at that point. I understand that this poor man’s wife survived because she became entangled in the mattress of their bed and this both broke her fall and shielded her from masonry coming down on her!
She would perhaps have been more fortunate had she been staying there during the bombing raids of World War II – an internet search for the Queens Hotel brought the interesting fact that “In one of the more bizarre incidents, a bomb hit the roof of the Queens Hotel but bounced from there to the Albany Hotel before exploding killing Canadian soldiers. The Albany was completely destroyed”!
By the time we arrived repairs were in hand, as they were throughout the country, but matters requiring building materials were progressing slowly due to the demand. It was not surprising, therefore, that there was very little glass in the dining room windows (making breakfast something best eaten with one’s coat on) and that various leaks continued to occur through the tarpaulin that was serving as a large part of the roof. The rooms themselves were large, the whole place being much ‘grander’ than the hotels we usually frequented and I had a large four-poster bed to myself. My former colleagues from Chelmsford, however, were obviously nearer to one of the above mentioned leaks because, while they had hot and cold running water in their rooms it was running through the pipes that served as electrical conduits and out through the switch! I believe that they went to bed on both nights with the aid of torches rather than turn the lights on.
David and Ian turned up after work on the Thursday in time for the evening meal and we began a tradition of going out to at least one local pub rather than staying in the hotel (where the beer is usually over-priced rubbish) for the evening. I cannot for the life of me remember anything about the pub(s) we visited on this occasion which means that they either were not very memorable or we had a great time!
The match was, because of the uncertain state of the beaches due to the gales, to be fished on Hastings pier by kind permission of the local angling club which closed it (for fishing purposes) to members of the public for the day. The match was not pegged and the pier was so close to the hotel that a kind of ‘le Mans’ start occurred with teams racing to get to the end where the best fishing is usually found.
It is at this point that my recollection of events differs drastically from that of David T (who was a part of the Maidstone team who were hosts and organisers that year). I, in common with many others present, recall quite clearly being told by Paul D at the Captains meeting not to fish from the lower level of the pier because this was dangerous. We were extremely annoyed, therefore, to find the Maidstone team, who had sportingly allowed the rest of us to go racing off, setting up on the lower level! We felt that, being near the water they would be more in touch with the fish and so it proved with Maidstone coming out easy winners.
There was considerable annoyance back at the Hotel and you may be sure that Colin P took maximum advantage of what was almost certainly a simple misunderstanding in his ongoing battle with Paul! Unfortunately, never having particularly taken to Paul as a person and having personally perceived an example of what I considered ‘sharp practice’ it was always difficult in the future to disregard completely Colin’s propaganda.
As far as my new team was concerned we all weighed in and I’m sure finished in the top half of the results table. I was worried that I was going to let the side down and ‘blank’ and it was only in the last half hour that I managed to collect a pair of Dabs just over the size limit! I put this down to injury – during the daylight part of the match I had reached down to pick up my weight from the deck of the pier and gashed the tip of one finger on a piece of glass! It refused to stop bleeding and I had been obliged to waste a great deal of time running around my fellow anglers to try to find someone with an Elastoplast. I eventually managed to get one from the First Aid kit in the office of the Amusement Arcade manager at the shore end of the pier but the cut continued to bleed all through the rest of the match and was still going when we got back to the hotel. I should probably, with hindsight have got a stitch put in it but that seemed a rather wimpish course of action so I just ignored it and did my utmost to make up the fluid loss in other ways! Ever since 1987 my tackle box has always contained a box of plasters and a tube of Savlon!!
We were never really in with a chance of winning with only three in the team given the scoring system previously mentioned but all agreed to try again next year and to do our utmost to acquire a fourth team member.
Finally, as neither I nor anyone else involved will be with the bank when this is read, I can reveal how the Hotel bill was paid at no personal cost to Ian, David or myself.
We were allowed to claim back from the National Sports Club (in our case via the BarclayTrust Association) £20 per person per night plus travelling expenses equal to 2nd class Rail fare. If one did not expect full payment for petrol these items were always enough to cover the ‘Bed, Breakfast and Evening meal’ package that was negotiated for us but it was the £80 relating to Ian and David’s overnight stay that was disallowed. Even with the reduction that the hotel kindly gave us for their ‘reduced facilities’ I was still about £50 short – all of it on my Barclaycard as I had settled the bill for the whole team!
I discussed this with John W on the way home and he agreed that it was unreasonable to have expected my team not to participate fully in the competition – which included the social side. He suggested that I go ahead and claim the expenses that could legitimately be paid to me and he would “see what he could do”! This I proceeded to do, adding £10 to the claim out of sheer bloody-mindedness for non-existent ‘meals taken en route’- which was allowed without comment and brought the deficit down to £40.
Shortly before my credit card payment became due John sent me a cheque drawn on the Chelmsford Sea Angling account for exactly £40. I could not accept this if he was likely to get into any trouble over it and called him up to talk about it. When John realised that I was not happy with a ‘no questions asked’ situation he explained that as I had travelled with them he had claimed for me as a fifth member of his team, betting (quite correctly) that the Sports Club would not know how many members per team our rules permitted! He pointed out that he had kept back my 2nd class rail fare to help meet the fuel costs of the minibus and I agreed that justice was served all round!
