I had just turned 18 years old and was training hard to make up some time on the fast men of the day. Ray "Rocket Man" Calverley, Alan Edge and that very fast young lad Nicky Wain were all ahead of me by an average of about one second a gate at this time. We had 30 gates, half a dozen being reverse gates, 20 seconds added for an outside touch and 10 for an inside touch...per pole! Boat design and poles almost on the water did not allow for any part of paddler or boat to go anywhere except through the gate. This meant clear runs were very unusual and you could win even with penalties.

This season was my last shot at the British Youth Team. Six going abroad with any reserves staying at home. I had my work cut out with Nicky going consistently well ahead followed by the likes of Graham Helsby, the Stallworthy brothers, Colin Ralph, Andy Southerland, Steve Briggs, Mike Mitchell and Martyn Konig. Those were my main opponents but there were others too. I represented VKC along with slightly older and always faster Bob Campbell and Chris Lovelock. Whilst I did paddle team with these two several times, they paddled with a RAF paddler here and i raced with Dave Brown of VKC and Mike Mitchell from Gloucester. Mike was an awesome paddler from a very young age and I recall him winning so many open events that he attended as I was making my way up to Div 1. It was great to finally catch him up and race team with him.

The team event was a big deal in those days. The race was held over two days with a practice run and two team runss on Saturday and your two individual runs on Sunday. So the team runs, aside from being great to do, were very important preparation runs for the individual race the next day.

This 21st place and 5th youth was a good result for me and got me on the British team training squad.