New Era

Eighties

Nineties

21st Century

Up until 1981 there hadn't been any national runs. At bank holidays local clubs had their own little resort that they went to and that was it really. Then towards the end of 1980 Tom Petch from York Scooter Club organised the first ever No. 1's meeting in Wolverhampton to organise a proper calendar of runs. Once voted on these runs were advertised in the underground magazine of the time Scootermania. The first ever national scooter rally was scheduled to take place Easter 1981 at Scarborough. It may sound strange now but a lot of scooterists weren't sure about the whole idea of national runs back then. So there weren't a lot of the Blues at the first rally. Mind you in those days the club wasn't that organised, as it was still more a bunch of mates. For me the whole weekend was just amazingly exciting.There were thousands of scooters there from all over the country. In Scotland we were all still mods and into lights and mirrors whereas in England there were all types of scooters on the road from the mod Christmas-tree style to skeletons, race replicas, and custom paint jobs with metalflake and vreeble to the fore. We were totally unprepared for the rally I remember and ended up kipping for the night among the rocks round by the all-night café on Marine Parade. An area which the police had set aside for us to keep us all together. There was no organised entertainment in those days so all the scooterists queued up to get into the local night clubs and then just took them over. The atmosphere was brilliant as everyone just mixed in together no matter where they came from in the country and you just felt like a member of one, large family. When we got back from Scarborough we were determined to become as organised as the clubs that we had met down south. That year we attended three other national runs Ayr (which was a nightmare of hassle), Keswick (where the infamous riot took place), and when scooters were banned from the Isle of Man we went back to Scarborough. By the time we were ready to return to Scarborough for the traditional Easter rally of 1982 scootering had become massive. The club was much more organised and at Scarborough we set off with 33 scooters and 56 members, and had managed to arrange our ownback-up van. Although the turnout was much bigger at Scarborough in '82 the atmosphere was nowhere near the same. There were clashes between scooterists from different areas and a couple of pubs got wrecked. On the way home we ended up in a fight with local bikers in Thirsk. We had stopped for petrol and because the garage was so small as soon as we had filled up we were driving round the corner to park up and wait on everyone. As I left the garage someone shouted something about greasers and when I looked back all I could see was a swarm of leather jackets coming up the streetheading for the garage and the last couple of our scoots that were there. We sped round the corner and gathered the troops to get back round there. Whenwe came screeching to a halt and charged them brandishing our heavy chains and padlocks most of the bikers ran for it but two or three stood and got a right kicking. Locals came out of their houses to scream abuse at us sowe jumped back on the scoots and headed up the road. We were later stopped by the police but we denied everything and were sent on our way. That year we attended all the rallies with Great Yarmouth, Colwyn Bay, and the Isle of Wight being special favourites. We were mentioned frequently in Scootermania magazine and became well known to scooterists down south.

That really set the pattern for how the eighties would go for the club. Over the next few years we built the club up and very much concentrated on attending all of the national runs each year. To be honest there were so many rallies that they all start to blend into each other. Characters came and went over the years although many of them have by now returned to the club although I wonder what happened to some of them like Callum Kelly, Vicki Prior, Brian Grieve, and Bri Logan. All of who played a big part in making the club what it is today. As well as national runs the club also attended other Scootering events such as the infamous Convicts 'Larne' weekenders which helped us make very good friends with a large number of Irish scooterists. Other members started to travel in Europe especially to Switzerland and we established strong links with the Swiss scooter scene. In 1985 we became a branch of the Vespa Club of Britain. Although the Vespa Club is primarily a sporting club the Blues were still very much a road going club and we won their Best Supporting Club award for three successive years in 1985, '86, and '87. We also won an attendance award at the 1986 Eurovespa Rally in Krems, Austria. Our involvement in the Vespa Club saw us help to re-establish scooter sport north of the border. 

Originally this took the form of one day sporting trials held through in Glasgow although we used to hold a joint trial in West Lothian with the Coyotes S.C. Eventually the Vespa Club in Scotland started to hold a two-day sporting event 'The Heather Rally' up in Oban and through our then chairman, Willie Grieve, we were heavily involved in the organisation of that. About the same time the club affiliated to the Lambretta Club of Great Britain. This was when the Lambretta Club used to hold its member's rallies at venues such as Tan Hill in the Pennines. These were brilliant weekends. It may well sound dull but much of the time was just sent sitting around having a pint and chatting with guys who had been on the scene throughout the seventies and had a wealth of stories to tell. There were always some silly games thrown in to break the ice such as the tug-o-war, the drinking contest and the horrendous cake eating. This involved four competitors eating a slice of cake as quickly as possible. It sounds easy but of course mixed into the cake mix were curry powder, peppers and all sorts of horrible concoctions. The Blues are unbeaten in these competitions thanks to our secret weapon, Willie, who actually liked the bloody stuff. All good fun though, and some great and memorable weekends. On the social side in the eighties the Blues used to hold regular competitions against other local clubs in pool, darts, bowls and just about anything else you could think of. It has to be said though that we usually ended up losing as were an extremely talentless lot. Not satisfied with our annual anniversary dances we also took to holding other themed dances. Themes we dreamt up included a 'Cowboys and Indians' night (which included a pantomime cow) and a Bad Taste dance, which saw us all looking out our seventies fashions. The main social event that we used to hold was our annual Five-A-Side Competition up in Perth. Originally this had been held by a Perth club but when this folded we had taken over the running of it. This always proved a popular end to the season with the five-a-sides held during the day in the local Bells Sports Centre and then after a few drinks in the local pubs back to the centre for a presentation dance at night. We used to get slaughtered in this every year although the club's honour was upheld by our girls' team who retired unbeaten when the event eventually folded due to lack of interest in the mid-nineties.

 
Nineteen eighty-nine saw not just the end of the eighties (a bit obvious that one) but the end of the first decade of the club. We were determined to celebrate our anniversary with a bang, and we started off with our anniversary dance held at a venue in Leith. This was so busy that we actually had to turn people away at the door. The dance also got a great spread in Scootering magazine, which gave us a boost for the coming year. At this time the N.S.R.A. were probably in their heyday. The rallies were well established and people hadn't yet got tired of going to the same old venues. The year started with a return to the Isle of Wight after many years' absence, and the club took a good squad of scooters to every rally. By now we were also helping out the N.S.R.A. by stewarding at their events. Whilst other scooterists did this for money we simply did it to try and put something back into the scene. We were rewarded by winning the N.S.R.A. Club of the Year for 1989, which was really something special to achieve on our tenth anniversary. The eighties were a great time of large-scale well-organised rallies and we all wondered what the new decade would bring for both the club and scootering.