Welcome to Grindley Brook
The parish of Grindley Brook is famous for, well, not very much really. As far as I know, there were no famous historic battles held in my home village. Grindley Brook has never yet produced a prime minister, an Olympic champion or a Nobel Prize winner. If you had three legs, there is a location in the parish where you could be standing in Shropshire, Cheshire and Flintshire (Clywd) concurrently. Grindley Brook has over the years produced a greater than average number of anglers, for when I was secretary of the village club, few if any resident youngsters failed to be persuaded to at least give fishing a go and a fair percentage went on to acquire the fishing habit.
First year
It would have been in 1978 when a group of us, encouraged amongst others by the indomitable Thelma Platt, devoted mother of occasional errant son John Jnr, decided to hold a series of summer evening fishing matches on the Llangollen Canal. For I almost forgotten, Grindley Brook is indeed famous for the Llangollen Canal, its staircase locks and its Grade 2 Listed Telford lock cottage.
In that first season competitors would have included Ian & Stuart Reynolds, Malcolm Crump, Dave Wright, Johnny Platt & his cousin Steven, Paula & Ian Robertson and Stewart Skowronek as well as yours truly. The fishing was controlled back then by an amalgamation of clubs under the banner of the Shropshire Union Canal Angling Association. Dad wrote to Stan Jackson, the then secretary of Warrington Angling Association, to gain permission for us to fish. Weights were low, with gudgeon and ruffe the main catch. Malcolm Crump once landed a 2 lb plus eel; the rest of us were fishing for second spot that night.
Expansion
After that first year interest grew and although and I was spending much of my spare time as a coach. If anyone wanted to learn to fish, I would show them to the best of my limited ability. Over the next four or five years, numbers attending these summer holiday matches increased.
At various times, competitors included Nick Grills, Tracey & Jason Shone, Gary & Ian Taylor, Peter Barton, Stephen Oliver, Nick Roberts, James North, Mandy Gilbert, Phil & Roger Robinson, Charlie Habberley, Paul & Nigel Roberts, Andrew Hughes, Martin Poole, Julian Goodwin, Julian Dimelow (who later tragically passed away after being stung by a bee), Evan Peter Clarke, Justin Lloyd, Michael Simmons, Martin Price, Tim Dutton, Tim Uttley, Evan Barker and James Dicken. I must not forget my brother Andrew either. His favourite method back then was to ledger with a five foot quivertip rod and he caught gudgeon galore using that technique.
Memorable incidents
Whilst at school I worked at weekends and in the holidays at Grindley Brook Garage, owned then as now by local entrepreneur, Dave Roberts. Dave was a great supporter of the fishing club. We would hold the prize presentations on Dave's lawn or if it was raining, which it often does in Shropshire, we swapped the lawn for the luxury of the garage workshop. There was no expense spared back then! It took me nearly a year to persuade Dave's eldest son Paul to enter his first match though. On his second outing he drew the famous slab peg just beyond the blue railway bridge. With minutes remaining and only four gudgeon in his net, Paul was getting despondent. Then his float dipped and upon striking, a huge perch getting on for a pound in weight came hastily to the surface.
Panicking, Paul tossed the rod to the ground and sprinted for the safely of the bridge. His Dad landed the fish which I think was good enough for second spot. On another occasion young Evan Barker struck a trifle too hard and a gobsmacked 12 oz perch ended up in the towpath hedge. We held occasional matches against other teams, famously defeating the might of the men of Wyatt Brothers (Whitchurch), but being brought quickly down to earth when a team from Ordsall School, Salford beat us despite them never having seen our canal before.
Yellow van man
One autumn, not long after passing my driving test, I persuaded the ever generous Dave to let me borrow a van for the purposes of transporting numerous keen junior members to compete in the Whitchurch Angling Association autumn series of six canal matches. Regulations were not as stringent back then (fingers crossed there are no traffic policemen reading this) for we once squeezed no less than 11 anglers into that three seater van. In the rear of the van were eight youngsters plus all our equipment, packed together more tightly than sardines in a tin. They hung on for dear life as we negotiated those twisty border B roads on the road from Malpas on route to the Llangollen canal at Fenns Bank or Whixall.
North Shropshire Open Junior Championships
One of the big events in the junior angling calendar back in the 1970s and 1980s was the North Shropshire open junior championship. Usually it was held on the Wheatsheaf pool which had 80 pegs and tickets were always in short supply. In 1981 the dedicated Whitchurch A A secretary, Bill Young, delegated me to organise the event.
Several young anglers from the Grindley Brook club were in the starting line-up that day. It was a baking hot August afternoon and the match ran from 2.00pm until 4.00pm. It fished hard and young Paul Roberts snared a 12 oz tench from peg 40 and that was good enough in third spot. As far as I can recall the winner with a two pound tench was Brett Cooper, the youngest brother in the Cooper angling dynasty. Barry and Roy are still fishing to this day. In 1984 my younger brother Andrew took the title as did James Prince later in the 1980s.
