Was anyone else a member of a Junior Club?

[warrington63]

Fishing clubs, no......I was a minor of the ABC and a member of the Butlins Beaver Club. Also, a member of the Cub Scouts, the Methodist Church and the youth club. I remember holding the banner on walking day for the Cub Scouts, pleased as punch marching to the tunes of the Brass bands from the local collieries...... Happy days indeed....

I was in the cubs, ended up as senior sixer, awarded leaping wolf badge, had the most badges in the troop.carried flag on Warrington Walking day, the scouts had their own brass band that we marched behind, Also member of the ABC minors, and the Odeon saturday club,
Yep happy days ?

 

[baldpaul]

DYA, Doncaster Young Anglers. Fished junior nationals on the Trent and the Sibsey Trader. It was run by Jack Purchase who taught me the rudiments of pole fishing, 40+ years ago.

 

[NoCarpPlease]

Fished a few junior matches with Rushden & Higham Ferrers when I was 14 or so. The junior matches were run by two brothers at the time (sadly can't remember their names - might have been Parkes?).

Didn't make a huge impresion on me and I moved on to fishing senior matches pretty rarpidly.

I do remember very clearly being shown how to "hold back" with a stick float On the Great Ouse below Sharnbrook weir. To this day I still catch most of my fish running through . My other memory is getting beaten by a girl on the Nene at Glebe Meadow. I could only catch gudgeon whilst she had roach.

 

[Capt Birdseye]

We actually had a fishing club at school, and once a year we were allowed a day off to fish the annual match, usually at 5 Mile House on the Whitham.
One year, 75% of the lads were disqualified for moving on to the drain that runs adjacent to the river which was fishing its head off. The Match 3rd place had to be drawn for as only 2 of the remaining match anglers caught !

 

[rob6709]

Was in one called the king fishers, mostly fished blythe waters and packington. It was rubbish, there was supposed to be coaching. Those that had match fishing dads and all the gear got all the help from the "coaches" the rest of us were left to it.

 

[Zerkalo]

Blythe Waters and Packington are where I used to live so used to fish them a lot, not with my Club mind, we were always on Canals, Rivers, Edgbaston Reservoir etc with the occasional fishery.

We used to have fortnightly meetings in Digbeth and discuss tactics and stuff there but I don't remember too much coaching on the bank, we just used to fish matches and a bit of advice would be given if needed, had a few adults that used to fish in the matches too which always added to the competition.

I fished a few opens, nothing of much note and to varying success, around the age of 18 but 'other things in life' took over for a while and I stopped fishing altogether when I went to University.

 

[tipitinmick]

Barnsley juniors under the late Eric Jacques and Roy Abson. RIP my great teachers. ?

 

[Louis D]

Silver Dace for me, Eddie Farr and Jack Bedford. Also Nationals with Bristol and West Federation. I also fished a few matches with Clevedon whose junior section was called Skimmers.
The Bristol clubs were a close amalgamation (Under the umbrella of the Amalagamated Anglers) who controlled most of the lower Avon, apart from the sections that Bathampton had.
Plenty of interclub matches, junior matches, junior entries in senior matches, all without CRB checks and red tape......

I remember Eddie had a white Vauxhall Chevette. One year we got Eddie, his wife, me, Kev Winston and 2 sets of gear in for the summer league series. It was a long way from Kingswood to Warleigh like that and then I drew right above Claverton weir and had to walk from the aqueduct, at least I could stretch my legs before I collapsed.
It was a great club and there were about 70 kids. l also remember walking to peg 95 out of 110 fishing a junior open at Chequers which put me right in the middle of Jack Whites. No wonder I never grew tall - too many long walks.

 

[Simon R]

Locally a lot of anglers of a certain age will have members of Preston Park angling club - which, although not just a club for juniors, did actually put some effort into the junior section of the club - plenty of tuition and coaching if required and a number of organised matches and coach trips. I was only a member for a season or so, preferring to fish matches with my mates (there was about ten of us) on slightly more prolific waters than Gatenby on the Swale, the tidal Tees (in summer) and Albert Park lake.

There were a lot more juniors about then though - Middlesbrough AC organised a junior match on the park lake and tickets weren't always easy to get hold of - often entailing attending one of the monthly meetings held in the smoke filled upstairs back-room of The Broadway pub. There were, I think, 45 pegs on the park lake and everyone would be taken - these days I doubt you'd get ten.

The local council even held angling courses for juniors in the summer holidays - theory lessons in the Dorman Museum and then angling practice in the adjacent park lake. I never attended - family holidays meant I'd miss two or three sessions - but apparently they were quite good.

I remember when my local angling shop opened (1989?) one of the guys who worked there tried to get more juniors into the sport - organising coach trips down to places like Castle Howard on a 'dads & lads' type of arrangement - some of the tackle shop regulars filling the spaces for the kids with non-fishing fathers. I went on a couple and do remember getting soundly beaten by my junior partner at the aforementioned Castle Howard - I still maintain the reason he beat me was testament to the quality instruction and coaching I gave him.

Simon