Muddy Millers 4x4 Club

Hi all.

Todays history lesson takes us back to spring of 1997. This is when the first ideas behind a 4x4 club were born. I'm David Atkinson and I used to be the chef proprietor of the Old Mill Inn which was in 9.5 acres of mixed woodland, fields and swamp bordered by the river Morda in the Candy Valley just 2 miles from Oswestry.

Wow, you should all be shouting. A geezer with a boozer and an off-road course, he should form a club and call it The Muddy Pillo*ks such was the warmth of locals towards our treasured pastime, boringly somewhat we settled on The Muddy Millers 4x4 Club.

My awareness of any 4x4 goings on in the early days was next to nothing. "Not changed much I hear you cry." Cheers!! This evolved from our purchasing of a couple of quad bikes to help with the re-landscaping of the pub grounds as they were pretty dire. To cut the story short, whilst transporting trailers full of rubish, logs,rocks etc around the site certain rushes of addrenalin were peaking in the deep deep mud holes that littered the Candy.  Before long news travelled and others were turning up for a play. Much fun was been had and the seeds were sown. Before long we needed something bigger and an early 110 was purchased. This stayed for about a week as the agony from trying to apply the brakes with my poor knees which were both in need of surgery was pretty intense. A Rangie is what we wanted! So all stops were pulled out to source a decent motor. A fully caged Rangie 2 door was my new pride and joy. This lasted days as some work I had done, including new fuel pump and hoses, had been poorly fitted at a supposedly reputable garage (not local) and as a result it caught fire near the top of the single track Mill Bank. The main route to the pub. Fire geezers arrived very rapidly but it was too late. Next was a purchase of a silver 4 door V8 Rangie which was the preferred motor for all our new found activity, laning. It was brill and all the family could come. Even Sharon used to drive (me mad) on the less scarey routes.

This was the real start of the club with a chance meeting with Adam Lantos whom I met outside LEGS in Oswestry. There was a huge clue that the owner of the vehicle I saw was into off-roading. It was one off the most distinct motors the club has ever had with a striped red, blue and yellow paint scheme, full internal cage, 750 sats and a few definate adventure scars. I hung around to introduce myself and I had my first member.

Before long, various off-road fans appeared from all over and we decided to run organised laning trips. A dear chap called Graham, sadly no longer with us, used to go out and recce runs to asses the severity etc and we would do a breaky to start us off at the pub or have a hot pot waiting for our return. In those days (only ten years ago) it was not politically incorrect to set out with 15 vehicles or so . Graham would lead in the trusty old Rangy, the preferred motor of the day as you can allready guess, and the rest would try to follow. It allways seamed to be full of incidents and, despite that, so much banter and humour. Nowadays we allmost seem too well prepared to deal with every incident and hiccup along the way. I do wonder if we have seen the best of the laning days. Lets hope not as we are still plotting uncharted territory in 2008. Blessed as we are with more routes in our county and surrounding areas.

Back to the history lesson. Getting seriously mucky, and I mean really muddy mucky, was left to a chosen few with more extreme machines. All types of motor, including the quads, would really push the limits as the pub grounds offered just about every type of terrain you were likelly to encounter. The next purchase for me was a fully kitted out bobtail Rangie with full external cage, bucket seats, warn winch. ALL the toys in one beast of a basket. If the neighbours had hoped I would grow up and out of this mud lark, rubish. How wrong they were. With the help of Alex McDonald, former owner of the company Rupert now owns( see links page), I had to rebuild this beast from chassis up. When it was all ready we were ready for lift off, big style.

At some time around this point entered the world famous (well  in Oswestry at least ) Roger Jones. The current club chairman for those not in the know. Now we wanted to do some seriuos playing and trials came to the club. Instead of thrashing around willy nilly we got a bit organised. Some would strongly dispute this, without there regular cheques bieng sent, and thanks to Rogers support, managed to buy canes, flag tops etc to enable us to run regular events. Blimey we were getting quite a few mixed events under our belts, what with interest in racing and visits to all the magazine backed off-road shows.

So the time came round to having a proper membership etc . Way back in them there early days all the events were organised and co-ordinated by myself, in the main, and boy was that getting hard work as the pub was a very busy place to be! So came the inevitable, on the same club night I suggested we have a committee to help run things and on the same night a few of the key club members siad they had realized I was pressured they offered up their help.

I, for my sins, was appointed chairman. Roger was an obvious choice for trials co-ordinator. Rupert Astbury (before his McDonald Landrover days) was treasurer. Variuos other positions such as secretary and laning officer were appointed and we were truly off and running....

More later

We have since gained MSA approval.