I’ve just got back from Poland, where I spent five days covering the 60th World Coarse Angling Championship. It was a fantastic, but very busy trip, which ended with a fantastic result for Drennan Team England who took the team gold medal.
Having covered top level sport (including Premier League football, first class cricket, golf, horse racing, you name it – I’ve written and talked b*****s about it….), people often ask what it’s like reporting about angling and catching fish.
The simple answer is that angling in about people, not about fish at all. The fish are a bonus (especially for someone like me who has been fishing since I was a kid). But it’s the way anglers interact with each other that makes for interesting stories.
I was lucky enough to cover my first world championship in Hungary in 2007. It was my first meeting with quite a few people I’m now fortunate enough to number as good friends.
There I saw Team England in action for the first time. Mark Downes and Mark Addy constantly on the radio, buzzing up and down the bank to keep the team informed. Around 200 anglers from 40 different nations competing for the prestigious trophy as me and my good mate Matt Cahill wandered around trying to get television pictures to tell the story.
Amazingly, this was only my second job for ‘Tight Lines’. I’d done one film, for the show about three weeks beforehand, the producer, Mick Brais, liked it and asked:”Don’t fancy going to Hungary for the World Champs do you?”
My answer was:”Yes.” Getting Matt as my cameraman (we’ve worked together loads of times on Sky Sports News and all sorts of other stuff) was a huge bonus.
We travelled, got a taxi to a very Eastern European-looking hotel near Lake Velence which cost almost £100. The food was dreadful, but the beer was cold. Lazlo – our taxi driver for the four days we spent there – spoke broken English and was a legend, ferrying us back and forth to the venue every morning at stupid o’clock so we could film the draw, get interviews etc.
I saw Des Shipp, picked for the second day after England had problems on day one, wander onto the bank – and destroy the reigning world individual champion Tamas Walter from two pegs away with an epic display of long-range waggler fishing.
Then Alan Scotthorne won individual gold – his fifth world title. He needed to finish fifth in his section, from memory, and did it with a small skimmer hooked and landed as the final hooter went off. We captured the moment on video. Afterwards, I had the enormous privilege – with the camera rolling – of walking up to him and telling him he’d won the title.
The celebrations afterwards were brilliant. Drinking red wine with the late, great Bobby Smithers of Ireland. Being invited to sit with the England team as they celebrated. Realising Hungarian cuisine involved making big stews – then pouring large tins of fruit into the meat and gravy. The image of a large metal catering tray filled with 10 litres of ‘Chicken with Strawberries’ will live long in my memory………
We drank long into the night, Matt and I. We discovered that the Hungarians liked a drink or two. We discovered this.
This is a liquer called ‘Zwack’. Anything with a red cross label on it is bound to hurt in the morning…..
The next morning, we tried, unsuccessfully, to pay the hotel bill with cards – and were ‘escorted’ (felt like we were at gunpoint actually…) to a cashpoint where Matt withdrew a lot of cash to settle it. Lazlo drove us to the airport in Budapest – and off we went home.
Back at Sky, two days of logging tapes, three days in an edit suite – and my first two world championship films were in the can. The feedback from everyone was really positive – especially from Keith Arthur, my producer Mick and the England team after the saw it go out.
Having covered lots of sport, I started to realise covering fishing was great.
At a rough estimate, since 2007 I’ve covered about 200 fishing events. (maybe more – I’ve lost count to be honest!!). I’ve seen England win the world title in Italy and Spain – and seen them lose it in Holland and then Italy again. I now have the great Desmondo Shipp as one of my best mates, and am privileged to be invited to shove a microphone and TV camera in the faces of England’s greatest match anglers in some extremely difficult and high pressure situations.
So to Poland. The two films of the event will go out tonight on Sky Sports. The story is a good one. The film, this time captured on the bank by Ben Bregman, tells the tale of England’s progress to their 13th world title.
And about those people…….
Team sport is an incredible thing. Anyone who’s played sport will tell you how the relationship between people in a team environment will make or break their chances.
With apologies to Al Pacino in ‘Any Given Sunday’……
This is what it means to be in a team: The famous ‘inches’ speech was inspired by a real talk by Vince Lombardi.
I don’t know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we’re finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.
Now I can’t do it for you.
I’m too old.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make.
I uh….
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me.
And lately,
I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.
You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
That’s, that’s part of life.
But,
you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game
life or football
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don’t quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don’t quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in ever break of the game
every minute, every second.
On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that’s going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.
I’ll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The six inches in front of your face.
Now I can’t make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice himself for this team
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.
That’s a team, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That’s football guys.
That’s all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?
(Great film by the way………)
The England team in Poland included: Mark Downes, Mark Addy, Alan Scotthorne, Steve Gardener, Des Shipp, Will Raison, Sean Ashby, Steve Hemingray, Lee Kerry, Simon Willsmore, Callum Dicks and John Raison. Plus the wives/girlfriends of the anglers, plus several other vital backroom staff. that’s a team gentlemen (and ladies) – and they went those extra inches together.
As usual, my cameraman and I travelled up and down in our search for the story. We tried our hardest to trash the Ford Mondeo estate we had as a hire car, In gathering it, we stayed in Warsaw, drank some nice vodka – and were charged £60 for two steaks in a dodgy restaurant. The entire experience was brilliant once again.
Below is a series of stills grabbed from the video which will go out in tonight’s programme. I’ve also included links to the official results for those who like to see the stats and weights from all sections etc.
http://www1.skysports.com/watch/tv-shows/tight-lines
Hope you enjoy it and ‘Tight Lines’.
Fordy
Final_Individual Final_Team Individual Sun Individual Results_saturday_total Sectors Team
“Have we done enough?” England manager Mark Downes (centre) checks the numbers
“I think I’ve blown it for my team and cost England the gold.” Will Raison’s reaction in ‘A’ section on Day Two said it all.
Didier Delannoy of France lifts the individual world title. Steve Hemingray (left) gets silver, and Alan Scotthorne (right) the bronze.
Two section wins out of two for Alan Scotthorne. Here he is landing a small roach on Day Two from D section.
Just what you want half an hour from the start of the match on your World Championship debut. Some muppet of a TV reporter shoving a microphone up your nose and asking:”So how are you feeling?”. Well done Steve Hemingray. Total class and two section wins.
Take 48 of my opening piece to camera. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to say:”The Zeranski canal.” The two Polish policemen on the launch just out of shot were laughing quite a lot by take 32…….
England’s co-manager Mark Addy drives the team on. Tactics, rigs, bloodworm management and bacardi.
Reigning world champion Sean Ashby had a shocking week in practice – but recovered to score low points on both days.
Silver medal for Steve Hemingray on his world championship debut.
The Take 