Borderline Allstars Scooter Club

                                                      IT'S ALL GOTTA START SOMEWHERE !

Year 1979 Southend rally. Rushden Midnight Hour Mods, Twig, Rick Kalla, Little Brian, Paul Cowley, Glenn and Paul More attended this rally and met up with the Market Harborough Black and Whites, a freindship was formed at the rally. The Black and Whites invited the Midnight Hour Mods and some lads from Letchworth, to go over to the Welland Park Hotel, Market Harborough one friday night for a drink. They all went over and started to go there on a regular bassis. Certain members of the Midnight Hour Mods started going out with the Market Harborough girls and so the friendship grew stronger in some cases. They all attended Northern Soul do's like Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca and St Ives alldayer's towards the end of 1979.

Twig and Bruce 1982 Scarborough.

Bill on his beloved Bess 1981 Yarmouth.

Rick and Bruce 1981 Malvern.

1980, the word was out it was going to be Scarborough for the Easter run. Arrangements were made for the Rushden lot to run with the Harborough lot, everyone met at Wellend Park Road at the green, Market Harborough. 30 - 40 scooters left Market Harborough that morning in chaos to meet with the Leicester lot. Twig went with the kit in the car as his Lambretta Series 3 li 150 shot it's bearings ( some things dont change, Italian engineering ). They were spread all over Scarborough in different digs, but to see 3000 scooter's from all over the country in one place was amazing ! Then as history dictates, on the Sunday evening the infamous Scarborough riots started because of the mods, the northern scooterists and of course the police not liking each other much. Certain members of the Black and Whites were arrested including a well known window cleaner Bill Arnold, Rushden Midnight Mods escaped to within an inch of being bitten on the ass from a Police German Shepard !

Newspapper cuttings of the Weymouth rally, picture of the B.A.S.C. rally van and B.A.S.C. members. Left to Right : Copper, Larry Laughton, Tony Norton, Smiggy, Twig, Webby on Vespa P200 and Mick the Mod. 

Looking back the following week, they all pondered over the events at Scarborough. The next rally the Rushden Midnight Hour Mods attended was Great Yarmouth mid 1980, where the Market Harborough Black and Whites joined them in there hotel as they had a bar ! It was at this moment over a few beers a suggestion was made to join the two crews together, but no more was said and done untill late 1980 when they had a meeting at the Peacock Pub in Market Harborough, that was where the name Borderline Allstars Scooter Crew was established. Borderline as there was two counties, Northamptonshire and Leicetershire comming together, Allstars came from Junior Walker and his Allstars ( track playing now - Tune Up ), a Tamla Mowtown group. It was also decided that the crew colours was to be Black and Yellow, Bill Arnold came up with the design for the crash helmets, which was black helmets with yellow stars and Rick Kalla sprayed most of them with his thirteen stars ! The word was out that there was a new crew forming and Kettering and Northampton crews were to join them briefly. Also it was decided there would be four main organisers of this new crew, two from the Black and Whites, they were Bruce Gray and Bill Arnold and from Midnight Hour Mods would be Steven Turiccki (twig) and Rick Kalla.

Here is the 1st original Swaps Badge, can you spot the Lambretta wheel and hub ? It consists of the four areas that made the crew, a Lambretta and the name of the crew.

1981 The badges were designed by a well know signwriter who could not spell ! Teresa Houlet whom was dating Paul Cowley, used him as her model for the Members Patch.

Scarborough was the rally to be at in 1981, so Rushden ran the rally van thank's to Twigs stepdad again. They met up with the Market Harborough lot at Doncaster Services and attended Scarborough, no one was arrested at that rally ! The next rally attended was Yarmouth, buy now the club had a good following. Towards the end of the rally, Bill Arnold arranged for everybody to meet at a certain point where they would say there goodbye's in the traditional way of ridding up and down the seafront, then leave together. There was approximatley 56 Borderline Allstars Crew Members all "starred up" !

When they left Yarmouth the Allstars had been recognised, big clubs now knew about the.......

Borderline Allstars Scooter Crew ! 

1982 first rally was Scarborough, we run a van again and a car for the girls, we had approximately 18 scooters on this rally. We managed to get all the club members in one hotel which was a giggle ! There must of been 8 thousand scooters in Scarborough that year, no trouble anywhere, well no real problems at the rally apart from the usual Lambretta stuff. This was the first outing on my scooter "nothing but heartaches", and it turned a few heads.

Nothing but Heartaches.

After Scotland, which the Allstars did not attend, was Great Yarmouth, again we run a van and a car, there were 25 allstar scoots at this rally. It was a blistering hot weekend weather wise and i also remember the falklands war started. Everyone who attended that rally were up for the "crac" that weekend even the old bill ! No trouble at all.

Twig, Stewie Lawson and Julia at Yarmouth.

Little Brian and Bob Prez asleep in back of van in Yarmouth. Cromed Lambretta sidepanel for a pillow, very posh !

Next from memory i think was Colwin Bay, North Wales. No van for this and the rally was held at Colwin Bay castle, one member of the allstars donated a tent F.O.C. which his boss ( wellingborough based camping shop, nudge nudge, wink wink ) didnt know about ! We all slept inside it together and promtly abandoned it at the castle when we left. Other members of the Allstars went for a walk and found loads of medevil weoponry, as you can imagine there were alot of double edge swords and axes being thrown around, it was a miracle no one got hurt and good fortune that no enemies were around ! Also someone was caught trying to pinch a stags head off the wall ! We left colwin bay very sharpish the next day on our trusty steeds, minus armourment and tent !

Setting up camp at Colwin Bay.

 B.A.S.C on way back from Colwin Bay. 

 Next rally was Morecombe, it was decided we would go up on the tuesday and stop of to see some freinds in Blackburn, one car two scoots left Market Harborough. It started raining very soon after and didnt stop till we got to Blackburn. Bruces Jet 200 broke down on route and was left in someones house in Nuneaton, Bruce travelled on in the car. It took me two days to dry out my parker! Very damp and dismall weekend had, oh the joys of scootering!

Twigs scoot at Morcambe.

Brighton scooter rally ticket.

 Next was Brighton, never attended brighton before, ran a van for this weekender. Little Sammy broke a throttle cable in Bedford, just as the pubs were turning out ! Everyone wanted to fight us, so we chucked his scoot in the back of the van with the words " lets get the f*ck out of here sharpish ". We was all stopped by old bill in Hemel Hempstead and searched, even the van, the words from the old bill was " whats this doing in ere then " i think they were refering to the baseball bats in the van ! After conviscating them, they cautioned us and said " don't let us catch you with those again ", well how could they, they had them now ! We carried onto the heart of London round Trafalgar Square, all the toffs turned there heads to look at us as they emerged from the clubs, what a buzz, brilliant. On to Brighton, we were stopped again on way by more jumped up coppers, bastards, they were out to disrupt that weekend, they really hated us. Great weekend at Brighton, slept in the van saturday night, woke up in morn by a copper banging on the shutter telling us he wanted us out of town, the reply he got, " does your mum know your out " didnt go down well and he promptly let us know his enthusiasm to arrest us! We left Brighton with the Leicester lot and ran back with them.

Here is evidence that Mods and Bikers really didn't get on, Its almost like reading the script of Quadrophenia !

Next was the first Isle of Wight rally, we arranged to meet everybody at Oxford services. Rushden lot were there first with 8 scoots, Market Harborough turned up next with 6 scoots then we waited for the Leicester lot to turn up. We looked and saw thirty motorbikes comming down the road, quickly looking around for weapons, we noticed running with the motorbikes were the leicester lot ! Later we found out the bikers were the Leicester Rateye Motorcycle Club, the scooter club had run all the way down with them ! These two clubs had history and mutual respect for each other following a " dust up " in Leicester one time, the outcome being a truce, as the story goes ! Onto the Isle of Wight we went for an absolute cracking 5 days or so.

Setting up tents at I.O.W. Rally.

Allstars and Leicester lot getting ready for the pub. 

  Two more rallys followed, one was Skegness which back then was a local rally so we all went, 30 scoots approx nothing untoward happend quite calm. Last rally was Whitley Bay, we only took a van this weekend as it was the last rally, good job as everyone was scrapping that weekend, we were quite pissed and the locals were quite pissed off to say the least and I suspect car windscreen sales went up that weekend !

Mick and Bruce on the A1 going to Whitley Bay.

Allstars with a trusty Mk1 Transit returning from Whitley Bay.

Young Allstar Paul Mayer in his mums garden, Rushden, picture taken 1981, sitting on Paul Cowley's infamous Purple Paradise a GP150