History of the Club

Victoria & Biddulph Angling Society

from the beginning

Back in 1975, a small group of keen anglers, who are employed by The National Coal Board as miners at Victoria Colliery in Brown Lees decide to set up their own small fishing club.

A little bit of research into the venture found them discovering that there is already a fishing club set up at the colliery, but due to a lack of enthusiasm and interest it had been forgotten about. They managed to find minutes of previous meetings, deeds to waters which had been forgotten about and even a small frozen bank account. So to resurrect the old club, a new committee was formed with the likes of Alan Cornwell, Phil Moston, Phil Docksey and Mick Owen taking the lead, as with the rekindling of any project of this nature certain criteria has to be met. In this case they were raising club funds, obtaining waters for members to fish, and increasing the membership to expand the club. Victoria Angling Society was now re-born and fully operating.

This newly formed committee first order of business was when they approached the then management of the colliery and asked permission to fish the three small pools situated behind the main office block and fire station. These were actually the colliery reservoir used for fire fighting purposes, and also the pump lodges where water from the pit was actually pumped underground. One of the pools became quite unique as in the most harshest of winters, it never froze over and provided sport when everywhere else was frozen solid. The permission was granted by the management to allow the fishing club to fish these pools but they only provided 20 fishing pegs, and with the interest and therefore membership growing, it meant that if all the members wanted to fish at the same time, there would not be enough pegs to accommodate them all. So the committee had to increase the number of waters available to members to meet the demand for the club. They decided to approach the Coal Board Head Quarters of Staffordshire at House Berry Hill and asked the estates department for help in locating other possible waters. The estates department looked into it and agreed to let the club have the fishing on an old disused pumping overflow station located in Mill Hayes Road . A lot of people knew this pools as ‘Dead mans pool' because unfortunately someone had drown in the pool some years earlier. The pool itself had not been used for many years by the Coal Board and had become stagnant and overgrown and had become a tipping site littered with prams, old bikes, furniture, bottles and other household waste. In other words, the place was a total mess, but despite this, the committee took it on and a massive clean up campaign took place. The number of skips full of rubbish and the man hours put into transforming the pool back to life is incalculable. The pool had become stagnant due to the natural water course being diverted so an inlet and outlet were created and so the pool started coming back to life. The pool was stocked with Carp, Tench and Bream and they really took a hold in the pool. The number of pegs was originally 13 but such was the success of the stocking and therefore fishing quality of the pool, news traveled far and wide only once again increasing the membership to triple what it was.

Then a disaster of great magnitude struck the club. The Coal Board announced it was to shut Victoria Colliery which led to the original three pools being filled as the colliery site was levelled. This not only lost three of the four waters that the club had, but also dispersed committee members far and wide to such places as Holditch, Hem Heath and Florence collieries. But such was the determination of the committee and the members, they decided to keep the club running staying where they were as part of Victoria Colliery and Knypersley Social Welfare Centre.

After a few years, it came to light that the original rights to The Cricket Ground Pool were in the name of the original club, Victoria Angling Society. Although the club had pre 1975 been forgotten about, it had not ceased being a club so the fishing rights to The Cricket Ground Pool still belonged to the club. At the time another fishing club, Biddulph and District Anglers were using the pool and after a series of meetings the two clubs agreed upon an amalgamation and the Victoria & Biddulph Angling Society was founded.

The new club now had two waters to fish, the 13 peg Mill Hayes Pool and the 40 peg Cricket Ground Pool. The amalgamation of the two clubs brought together two sets of members, and although there were a few dual members, they still had only 50or so pegs to fish and something like 250 senior members and 100 junior members.

Always trying to improve facilities and give members a variety of fishing, the club managed to acquire a length of The Macclesfield Canal near Astbury. This covered somewhere in the region of 100 plus pegs and gave the members now two different styles of fishing.

The club remained in this state for quite a few years always trying to increase the number of waters to improve the quality of the fishing thorough trying to buy land of to lease waters, it came up against opposition from high land prices and other fishing clubs with more money. As the occurrences above became more frequent, it could be said that the committee became a little jaded as all there enthusiasm and efforts were all leading to dead ends and disappointments. It has to be said at this point, the committee is and always has been made up of ordinary people with jobs and families. We don't get paid and we often put our own money into the club and not get it back. We often spent hours on the phone, money on petrol and most precious of all, our own free time. Through other commitments such as jobs, etc. our free time is usually weekends and bank holidays, all of which we could be spending with families, other interests etc. but we don't. We all do our very best for the fishing club and try to provide the community with fishing all because we care about it. So, you can imagine the heart break and low morale we all feel when people complain that the club isn't moving forward or even worse, if it loses a water. It's much easier for a person to complain, but it's much harder to be old in the cold laying flags for that person to sit on. The committee meet on the last Sunday of every month at 7.30pm in Victoria Colliery and Knypersley Social Welfare Centre. All members are welcome to attend. This is the place where all the decisions are made and if any member has any complaints or ideas, then this is the place to make their feelings known.

Slightly more recently, the Victoria Colliery site over several years has been an opencast site. To run this, an opencast liaison committee was set up, we sent a representative to many meetings to see if when the site was reclaimed, if it was possible to have a pool dug. After several years of negotiation, British Coal Opencast dug not one, but two pools. The bigger of the lakes was known as Victoria and the smaller Havelock named after the two shafts at the original colliery where many of the members once worked. A lease was secured and plans for the two pools got underway. The stocking of the Victoria Pool was primarily Bream and Roach and Havelock being Carp and Tench. These waters became available to members during 1996. With 30 pegs on Victoria and 18 pegs on Havelock , these two pools gave the club just what they needed to meet demand.

Over the next few years other waters such as Gannie Bank and two stretches of the River Dane were available to fish on the permit but due to natural changes, etc. these waters were released.

At this point the club was well established were a good selection of waters with a good member to fishing peg ratio.

Then during the year 2000, Cheshire Angling Association ceased to be an angling club and the two local waters. The Serpentine and Knypersley Res. became available.

Firstly, we managed to get the lease to fish the Serpentine. This was from Staffordshire County Council. The reason that we believe we were able to fight off bigger clubs, is the amount of work and care we show on our other waters and the fact that we are the local club with the heart of our membership in Biddulph/Knypersley and spreading out in all directions.

Secondly, Knypersley Res. was not available on lease agreement, but it was available to buy the fishing rights. Now as a small club, we would have been priced out by a bigger club, but it was decided for all the smaller affiliated clubs to form an organisation to allow all members from each club fish Knypersley Res. and split the price equally between the clubs. This then created Cheshire & North Staffs Angling Association. This was made up of 17 shareholders (including Victoria & Biddulph AS). They formed Knypersley Res. and split the price equally between the clubs. This then created Cheshire & North Staffs Angling Association. This was made up of 17 shareholders (including Victoria & Biddulph AS). They formed there own committee and trustees which were made up and different members of the shareholding clubs. Victoria & Biddulph AS had and still has two and our committee on the CNSAA committee.

This was the stepping stone needed to take Victoria & Biddulph AS to the next level. The advertising available through having both Knypersley Res. and The Serpentine on our tickets meant that the spread of our membership covered a much wider area. The new members who joined to fish Knypersley Res. and The Serpentine soon found themselves coming to all our waters for the majority of their fishing needs and now put the club in a successful position. During this time, through good fishery management and works carried out, the other pools started to come into their element. The Victoria & Havelock Pools had been and were still being maintained and managed in a way that has seen them slowly mature. They are now recognised as pools that provide so much selection for the members and on some occasions have been packed out as such is the demand to fish them. The Mill Hayes Pool went under a massive regeneration program in 2003 and we are now getting the results back.

Along the way, we have added another stretch of the River Dane and have entered into water share agreements with other clubs to provide fishing to all the fishing community.

Yes, we still have setbacks due to bigger clubs out bidding us or the price of land being too expensive, but the work and care we have put in means we can hold our own against the bigger clubs and increasing commercial venues and continue being who we are and always will be. A club that provides fishing to the expanding community, with a selection of pools and styles and fishing available, but still at a low price, and still remaining as the same locally based charitable club that we always were and always will be.

 

Originally written by David Wickstead

 

Re-written and updated by Daniel Goddard

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright Daniel Goddard