The 19th Scytheman

Easter Rally

25-27 March 2005

Words by Ian Botham pictures courtesy of Dave Gibbs

The moment had come on Friday 25th March, the beginning of the season had arrived. I looked out the window and saw that the weather was not as we had expected, We met at the normal meeting place, Bill Anderson, Mick Fullbrook, John Wymark and Daz Stocks already there with the usual banter in full flow. We headed out towards Soltau to meet up with the rest of the HFC loosing Daz on route to an engine problem, he caught up with us at the rally.

Waiting at McDonalds was Craig and Kath Ballantyne, Gaz Powell, Steve Evans, Jimmy Foalle, Simon Brunskill, Lisa Botham and Dave Gibbs. Whilst at McDonalds the banter increased and the main talking point was Simon B’s new invention, a lovely crafted piece of wood (from a pallet) which acted as an extension to his sprint rack. He is currently in the process to patent his idea, good luck mate!! We headed out towards the rally site and were joined by Nico of The Speed demons Germany Chapter and his friend from Hamburg, the weather wasn’t the best and we had a few minor incidents on route.

The usual meet and greets were done with our German friends and the beer began to flow!! The venue was better than last year with a purpose built hall and the usual tokens were being purchased to buy beer, Craig seems to have enough tokens from previous rallies and stored them all in his pocket by the end of the night the Scytheman organisers were approaching him to buy some from his stock. The music was a mixture of rare Northern and a few cover versions of classic Weller tracks. The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur and all AFSC members retired to their scratchers to get some drunken sleep.

Saturday kicked in as fast as the hangover did and we said farewell to a few members who had to get back to their families to celebrate Easter. More BBQ stocks were purchased for the daily feed and a polite knock at a local German house by me to scrounge some wood for the burner. The main event for the day was the live band ‘The Inciters’ to which I may add that this was their last ever performance and the band will now split to pursue their own careers.

They sounded really good and played a good set. After the gig we were joined by their tour manager Dion Watts, a really nice bloke and an ex Marine. The next event was the Custom show and only two members were keen to show off their steeds. Gaz Powell wanted to enter his new Vespa project and was narrowly beaten.

Dave Gibbs was successful and won with best Lambretta, well done Dave.

Copious amounts of alcohol were consumed and I finally got to bed at about 4 o’clock after wrestling with my gonk bag only to find the reason I couldn’t get in it was because the zip was done up!! Another hangover and it was time to go home, after stripping down the AFSC camp all the goodbyes were said and plans for the next run were made, which I believe will be Kiel at the end of April?

Thanks to all AFSC member who made my weekend great, it was good to see you all again and I look forward to the next time. Also big thanks to The Scytheman Scooter Club for a well organised weekend.

Ian Botham

MENU