Phil Scoble, Authour
This article is a specially edited extract from The Chronicles of Dartmouth 1955-2010 by Phil Scoble, published by Richard Webb. The book is available from White Sails Gallery, the Dartmouth Community Bookshop, the TIC and online at
www.dartmouthbooks.co.uk.
THE CHRONICLES OF DARTMOUTH: YEAR 1981
Dartmouth’s ‘IT’S A KNOCKOUT’ Team -Triumph Over Adversity
Dartmouth’s councillors and residents thought winning the right to host ‘It’s a Knockout’ would be great publicity for the town in 1981; it turned into the most amazing story of triumph over adversity. ‘It’s a Knockout’ was a massive, massive deal featuring teams taking part in some of the most ridiculous games ever conceived, wearing outlandish and sometimes dangerous costumes and often throwing themselves into big tanks of water in the process. Everyone did so for nothing more than pride as there were no cash prizes available for the winners. Towns entered in the hope that they would be chosen to host an edition of the programme that commanded viewing figures up to 20 million at times. It was considered a huge honour to host the programme and the news that Dartmouth had done so, beating the city of Plymouth and fellow seaside town Exmouth, was a huge boost for the area. However, the town could not have known or ever anticipated the huge journey the team’s members would undertake, the heartache they would have to endure and the ultimate triumph they would taste against all the odds.
They were the smallest town ever to reach the TV programme’s prestigious final
Hosting was an expensive process and the town needed a loan of £5,000 from South Hams District Council to pay for the infrastructure of the show which it was hoped would attract 5,000 visitors. On the day torrential downpours and chilly conditions despite the spring day meant that the excitable and Shakespeare- quoting host Stuart Hall described the day as ‘the coldest in ‘It’s a Knockout’ History’ which wasn’t the type of publicity the
town needed, and three-thousand un-sold tickets was not the return the town was hoping for to allow it to repay the ‘loan’ from the district council. Dartmouth were triumphant in a nail-biting competition, winning when Sid Davies, physical training instructor at the Britannia Royal Naval College won the ‘Castle Capers’ game and won the overall competition for the team.
The win set up a visit to Charnock Richard in Lancashire on June 14, for the next round of the British competition and also the chance to go to Portugal for the European competition heat. The win prompted delirious, though very damp celebrations on Coronation Park which had turned into a mud bath. But it seemed the event and the team’s win would be forever tarnished by its financial failure and the problems deepened when it was revealed the BBC’s own employees had been selling tickets on the cheap to make a quick buck. But the
accusations and finger pointing which had begun almost as soon as the broadcast finished, quickly
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