Jack's Fishy Tales

Prologue

The creation of the Ireland Colliery Sports and Social (Fishing) Club

The invention of the club was after a request from me, at a local union meeting, about the possibility of starting such a club and I was given permission to try to start one. There was no optimism for any success of this venture as the management and unions were kept very much apart. However a meeting was held on Sunday January 3^rd 1965 in the Markham Hall, Staveley, near Chesterfield. The meeting was attended by 24 men and the first social activity was to be a fishing match, to be held on July 31^st 1965 on the River Ouse, River Nene or River Trent. The match fee was £1 per man and this paid for the bus fare, fishing peg and pools winnings. The bus cost £20.

The first committee elected were:

Cliff Pratt (Chairman), Jack Carrington (Secretary), Allwin Gill (Treasurer), Frank Swift, Arthur Fox, Arthur Pendleton, Harold Rawding, Bernard Hayfield, Cliff Hodgetts, Len Bowler. 

To raise funds for the club the secretary was asked to start a tote double draw, to be held at the colliery every Friday. Using 7/6p of my own money, I purchased 45 table tennis balls and numbered them 1 to 45, these were used to draw the winning numbers and at the end of 22 years of the social club’s existence over £1.5M has passed through its books and the original balls were still in use. Fred Dix was the first winner and he won £44 for a 10p stake.

These reports and events are to the memory of Cliff Hodgetts, my best mate and a stalwart worker for the club.

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