Drennan Barnsley Blacks are proudly representing England in the World Club Championship this weekend.
This year they are competing on Slovakia’s longest river, the River Váh at Žilina in north-west Slovakia. The venue is around 120 miles from the capital city, Bratislava, and close to both the Czech and Polish borders.
The main match length is 2km away from Žilina hydroelectric dam with an average width of 60 metres. The main target will be vimba up to 1kg and barbel up to 3kg but trout, carp, perch, dace, roach, chub, bleak, grayling and pike are also present. Twenty two teams of five from all over Europe are involved with the match decided on points over two four-hour events.
The experienced Barnsley squad consists of Alan Scotthorne, Matt Godfrey, James Dent, Lee Kerry, Frankie Gianoncelli and Simon Fields. Some of the anglers are already familiar with the Váh, none more so than Alan Scotthorne, who won one of his five gold medals further downstream.
It sounds like an excellent fish-catching venue, so we hope it lives up to its potential. Good luck to all of the teams competing!