Back in the 1980s there were a number of small, independent scooter magazines, produced by scooterists for scooterists. Ring any bells…?
One of those was The Ralliest, produced by Nick Jolly of Junction 13 SC. Nick was also a co-founder of VFM and we interviewed him in edition 10 of ScooterNova magazine.
Anyway, I happened to look through some of my old copies of the A5-sized The Ralliest the other day and came across something interesting. In early 1985, The Ralliest awarded their Club of the Year Trophy to my scooter club, the A41 Eagles SC. There are not so many Eagles on the rallies today, but aside from myself there are still a few of us riding scooters and attending events. In fact there were a couple of us out scooter endurance racing back in September too.
There were five Runners Up clubs and they were Mansfield Monsters (who are still riding and are very active including co-organising Cleethorpes scooter rally, and members often working VFM and BSRA events), Stockport Crusaders (still riding with members who help organise both VFM and BSRA rallies as well as printing rally patches), Notts Britannia (now known as Ilkeston Britannia and still riding), Glevum Stax SC (still riding and we were at their rally in the summer) and Scootermaniacs SC (still riding, member Stuart Lanning helped launch ScooterNova magazine as well as being one of main people behind the South West Scooter Clubs events). Editor Nick still rides too and attends rallies and events, while Norrie Kerr, who presented the awards back then is still riding and presenting awards today.
I found it interesting that half a dozen scooter clubs who were a big part of the scooter scene back in the 1980s are still pretty much that in the 21st century.
For a young whippersnapper like myself back in the 1980s, buying The Ralliest and other independent magazines involved a trip to London’s Carnaby Street or a scooter shop that sold it, but they and Stuart Laninng’s original British Scooterist Scene and Scooter Scene magazines (which he closed in 1986 and 1989/90 respectively) inspired me when it came to ScooterNova magazine. They were invariably printed on good quality paper, no matter what the cost. They had a genuine feel to the way they were produced, and I loved seeing a scooter on the back cover.
A lot has changed over the years, but many of us forged friendships back then due to a mutual passion for scooters, riding them, and the social scene that went hand-in-hand with the events we all attended. There was no pretence, we just did it. And we still do. For many of us it never went away. Through thick and thin, the highs and lows, scooters and the scooter scene are more than a passing fashion, scooters are in our blood.
** ScooterNova is an independent scooter magazine, published bi-monthly in the UK. Edition 28 (Nov/Dec 2021) was published on 30 October 2021 and is available from all good scooters shops, or have it delivered directly to your home via our secure online shop here.
