EMAL/Chair/01

18 Apr 05

It has been another good year for the EMAL with individual and team successes along with a general improvement in the standard of angling in the league. Over 50 anglers attended the Summer League with a minimum of 13 and maximum of 30 attending each league match. There was a noticeable biase towards man-made fisheries with the lowest turnouts being on Staunton Harold followed by the river venues. The Winter League was also well attended with an average of 19 anglers attending matches.

The first major event of the year was the Command Champs held at Woodlands Thirsk. A stunning team performance from Waddington A with just 6 penalty points, some 17 points clear of second placed Coltishall, made them STC Champions. A section win from Gary Vongyer, section second from Pete Dawson and a section third from John Belcher contributing to the win with Gary and Pete finishing individually 3rd and 4th respectively.

The RAF Inter-unit Champs was held in Sep and with the match being on the Trent at Burton Joyce expectations were high. Despite a strong wind and clear water, the river fished reasonably well, unfortunately the teams from the league were disappointed when Brampton won the team event. However, on reflection the anglers from the league had done exceedingly well with our teams filling 4 of the top 5 places. Our Old Lags team had finished 2nd followed by Waddington B tying on points with Cottesmore A but beating them on weight and Waddington A in 5th place. On the individual front Bill Woodcock led the way in 3rd place followed by Gary Vongyer in 4th, Phil Foster in 6th, Ian Craft in 7th and John Belcher in 10th.

The Interleague was next on the agenda and with 2 league matches on the venue beforehand we were hoping for a good result. On the day the venue fished hard, but with the experience gained from the matches and some good info from Phil Foster the anglers from the league produced a great performance on the day routing the opposition with 7 section wins, 2 seconds and a 3rd. Individually Phil Foster and John Summerson finished joint second tying on weight. A special thanks to John Summerson and Paul Coombes for organising the match on behalf of the league and to Phil Foster for providing some good gen on the venue.

The Summer League team event was won convincingly by Waddington A who won 7 out of the 10 matches. The Individual event was a lot closer with the result going to the last match. Gary Vongyer ended up winning with 9 points to Phil Foster and Ian Craft both on 12 points. Neil Tedridge with 63lbs of carp and a section win on the last match won the Summer League Clubman. Waddington won the Winter league with ease. The individual result was the closest finish ever with 5 anglers going into the last match tied on 7 points. At the end of the match there were 4 anglers tied on 6 points with congratulations going to Pete Dawson who, on countback, won the league with 3 section wins. The remaining 3 anglers all had 2 section wins so with weight deciding it was John Summerson 2nd, Phil Foster 3rd and Gary Vongyer 4th. Well done to John who won the Individual Final and also the Winter League Clubman, this should be the last time you are eligible to win it.

It was disappointing to see that a league as strong as ours, with so many good anglers, should have only 2 people in the Inter-services team, however Paul Coombes won the match individually and is the current Inter-services Champion. Well done Paul. Other results worthy of mention include Pete Dawson and Sean Stockley making it through to the final of the Angling Times Advanced Club Angler of the Year Competition with Sean finishing 3rd and winning the man of the match award. Pete Dawson won the Turner 400 Championships on the Thames against some top class opposition. Well done Pete.

To continue the development of anglers within the League I am hoping to introduce a new committee post of ‘League Training and Development Coach’. He will be responsible for organising coaching sessions and provide a point of contact, before and at matches who the less experienced anglers can go to and find out the methods, baits etc.

Finally I would like to thank all the committee members for all their work over the past season with a special mention to Pete Dawson who is standing down from Match Secretary after several years service.

G Vongyer
MACR
Chairman EMAL