Have to be honest it read to me like sour grapes, someone whining because they’re no longer on the team.

Two sides to every story though and I’d guess the truth is somewhere between the two.

Mmm I will read that sounds interesting…

There’s an interview I did a couple of years ago with Dick Clegg here: https://www.total-fishing.com/content/conversation-dick-clegg

… some might have missed it…

There’s always a pot somewhere calling a kettle black and unless you are there to see and hear it happen you have to decide do you believe the kettle or the pot.

It does open up an old can of worms, and if you believe it then it does support some suspicions that team membership is not all its cracked up to be.

I have not read the article so cannot comment on it, but I have fished against Kim Milsom and in my opinion he was better than Bob Nudd, better than Stuart Conway, etc, in fact Kim Milsom is in my top three English match anglers of all time, he was THAT good, ask any of the regular Essex boys about Milsom they will tell you, Chris Vanderfliet is STILL in awe of Milsom, when Milsom decided to call it a day with match fishing, England were weaker for it, Essex were never the same and match angling lost a truely GREAT angler, I for one was very sad to see the back of him even if he was a twat when fishing a match.

(moderated)

Haven’t read the article in question but I have to agree with Bob’s (swimfeeder) assessment of KM.

@caster rob wrote:

Haven’t read the article in question but I have to agree with Bob’s (swimfeeder) assessment of KM.

On what grounds rob?

@andy cranes mate wrote:

@caster rob wrote:

Haven’t read the article in question but I have to agree with Bob’s (swimfeeder) assessment of KM.

On what grounds rob?

Amasingly talented and versatile.

I can remember (well I can’t actually) but it was probably late eighties, when he came up to Shrewsbury and fished the matches on the Quarry & County Ground. These were predominantly roach matches from late autumn onwards. In next to no time he’d sussed the venue and methods and was framing/winning consistently.

He semed to be able to do this on a variety of venues and methods all over the country.

He had an obvious natural ability to which he applied attention to detail and dedication.

Never got the recognition he deserved IMO.

A rare talent indeed then. Not read the article yet but sounds like frustration may have gotten the better of him.

@andy cranes mate wrote:

A rare talent indeed then. Not read the article yet but sounds like frustration may have gotten the better of him.

Possibly.

If that’s the case it’s certainly taken a long time.

Having read the article I can’t see how Dick Clegg comes out of it badly.
Milson’s comments seem directed at other team members rather than Dick Clegg.
Milsom resigned from the team when Downes and Addy were in charge, and when he was still being picked for the team. It seems to me it was a clash of personalities within the team that he couldn’t handle that caused him to quit.

Not read the interview yet either, but the very fact that the angling press and forums like this are still interested in Kim says a lot about the impact he had on match fishing.

Personally I really liked Kim in spite of (or perhaps partly because of) his somewhat eccentric personality. I first worked with him on articles from 1988 to around 1993, spanning his match career with Gordon League & the Shakie Superteam. He was always very helpful and never asked for payment for a 20 minute interview unlike some. For a young reporter keen to avoid taking such requests to a somewhat short-fused boss, that was always most appreciated.

I also watched Kim fish several major matches during this time such as Superleague semis and finals in Ireland. Compared to most top rods he looked awkward (bordering on crap at times), but looks can decieve and the scales always told the true story of a special talent at work.

When he joined Essex I was suddenly fishing against him every week from October to Jan in the old Cambs WL, and what Caster Rob says about his amazing versatility and speed of sussing out new venues was quickly evident. Tieing with him for first in section on the Adelaide then beating him for first in a next peg small fish whip race on Cock Bank remain two of my proudest angling moments.

Kim’s rep as ‘a prat while fishing the match’ doesn’t always hold true in my experience. I know at least two Cambs lads, now much older and successful anglers, who sat quietly behind him, asked questions, got brilliant explanation answers & even got given rigs and bait by Kim after one particular match on the Cam’s Long Reach.

As for whether I’d want someone of Kim’s personality in my TEAM if I had been in Dick Clegg’s shoes back then, that would’ve been one hell of a dilemma. However brilliant they are, some people just don’t fit the team ethos. And after all, Dick Clegg’s record as England manager suggests he got the vast majority of decisions right!

I’ve missed Kim’s presence on the match scene since he quit, but each to their own. As Pete Plant once told me when discussing Downsie’s post-match defeat demeanour, It would be a boring old world if everyone was the same!

My “Prat whilst fisjing etc” was a general comment Tom, 90% of the time he really was down right rude and ignorant …….but after the match had finished I found him to be a lovely, intelligent and witty bloke, thinking about it I believe his attitude whilst fishing a match showed what a winner he was, he was like an animal at his peg, ruthless, cold eyed and arkward but ultimately deadly, a gunslinger of an angler!!!

Personalities clash in all walks of life, but as the great Brian Clough used to say

“Always pick your best team” some people are too small minded to do that.

Great thread…..I think we all know or have known someone who is or have been brilliant anglers,who could and should have fished for their Country or some of the Top Teams that are around.But either their face didnt fit,or they had the wrong attitude,and because of that they just got overlooked.Mind you most of them just didnt want it or didnt want the aggro of the extra commitment.
I have never met Kim Milson so i cant make any comment on the why`s and wherefores of his article,but all in all one thing that does come out is the man”could fish a bit”,and that makes him a man to have our respect….IMO anyway.

I’ve not read the article, but have come across many situations where the best individual was more destructive to the team than their benefit.
However, in fishing that would be pretty difficult!

I don’t remember there being any issues at Essex whilst he was there – but I might be wrong.

My two clearest memories of Kim are:
Warks Avon at Leafields in about 1991. He blitzed the match with 9lb of roach, I was second or third with 5 lb (3 chub on the wag). He absolutely grilled me on how I’d fished …. certainly not complacent and voracious for information.

Grand Union at Heyford about 2 years later – terrible November day ….. next peg in an open section with howling wind down the cut. Both of us struggling for about 2lb of heads & tails … we knew it was hopeless and had quite a good banter.

I have read the article, can recall the resignation from the team and the silence at the time. I also saw Kim fish the world champs at Nottingham home pierpoint and also in a European match on the embankment.
His articles in the monthlies were a must read. I think it was known generally at the time that he was difficult but brilliant.
He resigned from the team, he was not dropped. I can now understand why. The culture within the team was not what it should have been and the responsibility lies with the manager alone. I am not critisising Dick Clegg, he was himself a brilliant angler who found himself at the head of the england set up having had I guess no formal training of how to manage people.
I think Stan Smith the previous manager to Dick was even worse in that department if you believe what was written about him.
Ian Heaps article a few months back had echoes of Kims from and international perspective, he himself never understood why he was dropped, Dicky Carr has also made similar noises.
The whole set up comes over as cobbled together with very well meaning individuals doing their best for the cause in an imperfect way.I do get the impression that things under the two Marks are now much more professionally done and would hope that difficult but brilliant individuals would be managed properly.

His articles in match angling plus were pure class. Think the articles must be ten years old by now but still relevant. His book on matchfishing is a total must for anybody looking to progress their fishing.

Still a shame he packed it all in.

I never knew he published a book, post details please and I will try to track a copy down.

Title: Match Fishing: A Champion’s Guide
Author(s): Kim Milsom

Publisher: The Crowood Press Ltd

Format: Hardcover

Publication Date: 1994-02-02

ISBN: 1852237910

Out of print now I think but it comes up on ebay regularly

Had a pm lead on this and now ordered a copy.

anyone else got a copy to sell

Google the ISBN number – you can pick a copy up for about £5 online

Best thread on any angling forum for a long long time. The stakes are always very high for any sportsman at the top of their game ! 😉

It was an interesting thread I found the bit unbelievable the bit that read along the lines of ” I got stitched up on a match everyone told me to fish size 26s and I did I lost loads of fish and they were swinging fish to hand !”Would that really happen ?

In my eighteen or so years of buying various angling publications Milsoms articles are by far the best of what anyone has ever managed to publish.

The article in question certainly reflects badly on Team England and Dick Clegg, and regardless of a clash of personality it doesn’t take much sense to realise that leaving one out of the loop (even if it’s just an Xmas card) won’t help but infact make the division wider.

who was in the team during this period??

I supose its all water under the bridge now, but what an angler, and probably more importantly to me, a fantastic writer who articles made me think more than any others. Like most who fished in the matches he took part in I to have a tail of being battered, it was on the K&A when he won a big open at Bedwin with 20+ lb of roach on the whip and punch from 2 pegs away. I couldnt see him because of trees and still regret not going for a look. I can also remember looking at the results sheet from an embassy pairs match just before a Div one national(back in the days when it mattered) on the Gloucester, and in something like the first 150 pegs or so their was this one 3or 4 kg weight with no one else beating the kilo, Mr Milson of course.

Sorry Lads………..I am being thick here, but where can i read this article ?
:confused:
The man was an awesome angler, he could catch fish in a damp pocket, pure class !

Yorkshire from memory I think the England team around the time was;
Bob Nudd
Alan Scothorne
Denis White
Tom Pickering
Steve Gardener
now it gets hard, Kevin Ashhurst had been around a long time but think he had finished by the time Kim emerged, as had Tony Scott, Ken Giles, Ian Heaps, Dave Roper and a host of others including the man many regard as the best Ivan Marks.
Strangely from what I have read Ivan was as different to Kim as chalk is to cheese.
I am sure someone will correct any wrong names above, as I have said its from memory.

Of course I should have added Kim up to the point he finished, which was around 1995 ish.

I’ve just binned about 12years worth of Match Fishing/Match Angling Plus. Kim finished around 2001 I guess, I’m sure it was just before the WC’s in Paris on the Seine. I’m sure the team at the time was Alan, Will, Steve G, Steve C, Sean A, Bob but I maybe wrong… Unfortunately I didn’t scan in the articles that Kim wrote, shame really as I always remember the one where he is opposite ‘The Galleon’ and bagged about 7lb of Roach and Gudgeon from a 10m wide Canal that looked featureless. Top angler.

My two overiding memories of the magician were being pegged next to him on the Div 1 National on the Grand Union at Milton Keynes. Completly featureless far bank for as far as you could see except for two large trees, yup Kim drew there. While plumbing up he lost two rigs in the trees which left me thinking that he was human. Come the weigh in the only bloke for 50 pegs to break a kilo, yup Kim.

Then he helped our team out many years ago on the Gloucester by telling us to blump up long as per everybody else, but to set a rig up for 3m out and to plumb this when nobody was looking as this is where you would catch. He also gave us the groundbait mix and said if you throw it in the air and it breaks up when hitting the ground it is not hard enough!. The team did all this and came second on the day catching all our fish from the close in line while all the other teams struggled for eyes long.

A true class angler and author.

Sorry I was wrong with my 1995, Kim broke into the team early 90s and fished until early 2000 years. Still could be in the side now like Alan and Steve G if he had not packed it in, real shame but its Kims life to choose what he wishes to do.

Kim is the best angler I have watched, don’t know him personally so wouldn’t like to comment about what he’s like as a person.

I remember him practising the catapult at the trent embankment in 2000. He fired all over the place and told us he was happy that the managers didn’t see him do that 🙂

I also remember his articles to be some of the best read in the magazines at that time

Great angler I am not surprised he left the england set up reading the interveiw in match fishing, seems as if he was intimidated by anglers and managers who should have known better, northern mafia? :rolleyes:

It comes over like that Fred but remember Bob Nudd and Steve Gardner were there too.
Re read the article last night and Kim started in 93 and finished after Italy in 2002 as has already been posted..

various other factors obviously come into play when selected to fish for the ultimate team, jealousy from those on the fringe, the fact that you may have to fish with someone in the team you can’t get on with, bad managers and the pressure cooker effect on having to come up with the goods not an easy environment, as Steve Gardner said in his interveiw he is absolutely shattered when he comes back from international duty. I don’t think Kim has shared all of his secrets about what really went on, I dare say it was a long time ago and he doesn’t want to rake up the past, he has moved on and seems to enjoy his current lifestyle away from the demands of team fishing. A lot to be said for birdwatching etc I for one wish him well in his retirment. A sad loss of a very good talented angler.

Kims book arrived yesterday and have had a quick flick throught it. It seems very strange looking at pictures of him sat on the old blue shaky box that most of us used to have.
One of the first pictures is of a very young Alan Scothorne on Holme Pierpoint.I was a tad surprised to see that when you consider what later happened with Kim and England.