Drennan Team England win gold and silver

This artical was on the Angling Times web site and i thought it was well worth sharing.


Drennan Team England win gold and silver at the European Championships in Portugal

Drennan Team England returned from Portugal medal-laden adding team silver to the World Champs gold they picked up in July and two individual medals with Alan Scotthorne being crowned World Champion and William Raison taking silver.

The team got to grips with the river, which has been a bit of a graveyard for England teams in recent years, losing out only to home side Portugal by just two points after winning Day 1. They scored even heavier on Day 2, only to see the Portuguese turn in an even better score to snatch gold.

Not that anyone was complaining. In fact, England could have been champions by four clear points if the much-maligned split section system had been in operation, this match reverting to the one big section format ¬ swings and roundabouts as manager Mark Downes put it.

“I said we needed to beat Portugal and Italy to win gold and we’ve stuffed Italy out of sight which has been brilliant for the team, but Portugal are just so hard to beat on home soil. I’ve been to Portugal nine times now and I think Portugal have won seven of those events. They never win a medal outside of their country!” England had the method to catch the small barbel sorted, fishing mainly wagglers just past midway of the river along with a little long pole work, single maggot fished up to 5ft overdepth in 12ft of water on light tackle and size 24 hooks working well over loosefed stickymag being the order of the day. An 18-point score on Day 1 saw England take the lead, 14 on Day 2 usually enough to seal gold but for Portugal’s stunning 10-point return.

“The performances this weekend have been just incredible,” Mark continued.
“Alan and William both won their sections and there wasn’t anybody to stop them,

William standing out on day two with a 4kg weight from a section where no one had caught more than 2kg in practice or on Saturday while Steve Gardener did much the same from a poor peg in A section. Alan was his usual awesome self and when he drew the end peg in E section on Day 2 where the big fish were and it was effectively all over - he made no mistake!”

Team result:

1 Portugal, 30pts

2 Drennan Team England, 32

3 Italy, 45

4 Spain, 61

5 Shimano Team Wales, 69

6 Belgium, 75

7 Hungary, 76

8 France, 84

9 Poland, 98

10 Luxembourg, 99

11 Netherlands, 101

12 San Marino, 105

13 Germany, 111

14 Czech Republic, 118

15 Sweden, 128

16 Finland, 139

17 Switzerland, 159