Club Dinner Dance 2010

It's quite difficult to believe that it's been a year already since the Wheelers last dinner, it felt like yesterday that I was being poured out the taxi on the way home from a fantastic night at Hughenden Rugby Club, and I was hoping this would be a similar event.

As is customary proceedings got under way late, the food was excellent in my opinion, and the bar affordable - the perfect recipe. Guest of honour Jamie McGahan gave a superb speech, with a good deal of honesty thrown in, and took a few questions from the floor before his good lady upstaged him somewhat by giving a robust public show of support for him and his domestic commitment. I've never seen a speaker made speechless in quite this fashion before and if Jamie can offer any of the lads advice on how to achieve this state of bliss in our own homes we'll be delighted to hear it.

MC Jamie Drever handled the hecklers well and while some of us were expecting Debbie McGhee to be handing the trophies over Eric was more than capable of filling that spot, although he needs to work on his make up for next year. The winners were well deserved, even my McCabe rival Jon Clarke. Of particular significance was the John McCamley trophy for the fastest 10 mile TT of the year, a sad loss to the club and the cycling community in general John's trophy was won by Kristoff in a superb time and will be a benchmark for future aspirants - a fitting tribute, we hope.

What was also apparent from the trophy giving and the meal was a sense of the club having a bit of a race related community, both in the testers department and the road racers. This is in no small measure due to the new arrivals this year - I think everyone got faster this year thanks to the Tuesday night sessions that were largely set up by Rab Wardell, and were 'bossed' by the Glasgow Wheelers in general. I personally think this is what being in the club should be about - getting on your bike and riding it in fun and in anger, or indeed agony as was often the case with your clubmates . It is how relationships are formed and where friendships start. The donwnside to all of this of course is that you get dragged out by your new friends to a club you've never heard of until 4am, lose your keys and end up having to use your mobile phone as a torch to locate the spare set planked somewhere in the neighbour's garden.

So, yet again Jamie, and in no small measure Alix, pulled it off; despite having moved house this year, being in the middle of his banking exams and managing an extensive poultry farm Jamie still got it together. Jamie has been a stalwart of the club and deserves all our thanks, both for this evening and all his work through the year.

As is customary in all reports I have to give a performance of the night - its between Mrs McGahan and Robbie. Robbie was out all night with us and still made it into Morrisons for work in Dumbarton at 8am, despite just 1hours sleep, and having to get himself there from Kristoff's flat in the west end. Possibly his best performance of the season!