Goole Avengers

Around 1982 The Goole Avengers match team was named! Maybe the name came from the television program of the time? The name was made up on the hoof, on the way to a fishing match by a few of the anglers in the back of a van! We Think?

The Goole Avengers match team was basically an offshoot of the Goole & District Angling Association. Goole & District Angling Association had been putting teams together and fishing in large matches such as the National Angling Championships long before the team started fishing under the name Goole Avengers

In the early days before 1982 the team was run and organised by Barry Rudge from Goole, Stan Brown from Rawcliffe and Norman Soar a Newsagent from Goole, It was based around the local fishing tackle shop in Goole.

After 1982 in the early days of the Avengers the team was run by Barry Rudge with the help of several of the local match anglers who used the local fishing tackle shop. As the team looked to improve its results and become more professionally run it started to look for sponsors and started to try and recruit anglers from further afield in a bid to compete with the big teams of that day such as Barnsley Blacks, Daiwa Trentman & the Shakespeare Superteam.

The Avengers first major sponsor was a local company called Conveyor Improvements ltd. In those early years the team managed to get bits of sponsorship from various local businesses including the local fishing tackle shop in Goole and Elizabeth Homes Ltd just to mention a few. The team was always linked to the local tackle shop which helped keep a Goole feel to what was happening with the Avengers.

About 1983 Barry Rudge started traveling to fishing matches with a young man called Steve Canty they became good friends and over the next 10 years plus they turned Goole Avengers into a major force on the national team fishing front! Competing and winning against the best teams in the country.

Monday nights turned into the weekly fishing meeting where the match anglers would meet up at the local team headquarters which in the early days was the Steam Packet Pub and later the Woodlands Pub both in Goole, sometimes these weekly gatherings used to go on into the early hours of the morning! With the anglers going over what they had or hadn't caught from the week before.

The historic link to the local fishing shop became very important in these years when it came to securing sponsorship for the team and with a lot of hard work from Barry Rudge, Steve Canty & the fishing shops Richard Scott they managed to secure the following sponsorship deals: 1987 Received sponsorship from fishing line manufacturer Tortue in France and became known as “Tortue Goole Avengers” 1989 Received sponsorship from one of the world’s largest fishing tackle manufactures Shimano and became known as “Shimano Goole Avengers” 1991 Received sponsorship from well-known fishing tackle supplier Shakespeare and became known as “Shakespeare Goole Avengers” 1995 Received sponsorship from Ground bait manufactures Van Den Eyne in Belgium and became known as “VDE Goole Avengers”

There’s no doubt that this sponsorship helped in making the team successful but the commitment and hard work from Barry and Steve was the driving force in turning this small town fishing team into a Premier league team back in the day. The fishermen who were part of these teams over the years owe a debt of gratitude to Barry and Steve for all their hard work and also to the local fishing shop in Goole which always supported the fishing team.

It was about 1995 when for personal and family reason Barry Rudge had to stop his involvement with team fishing and not too long after this Steve started to lose his interest in fishing to the point where he stopped fishing altogether, this was the beginning of the end for Goole Avengers. It was run for a while by Dave Sharp from Castleford and the team still had some good success but the Goole connection and feel was lost and not too long after this Goole Avengers disappeared.

In its heyday Goole Avengers had two teams of 12 entered into most of the main team fishing competitions in the country and for some events like the Humberside Winter league on the river Trent a third (Buchanan) pub team of 12 from Goole would be entered. It’s very doubtful that Goole will ever see these days again?

Below are some of the teams achievements:

1984 Won the South Yorkshire canal team championship

1985 Won the Courage team championship on the river Avon at Evesham

1986 Won the river Thames team championships

1986 Won the Stainforth & Keadby canal team championships

1991 Won the Sundridge Super league team final over three days fishing in Ireland

1994 Won the NFA knockout final in Denmark

1995 Won the Division Five National on the river Trent