paled into insignificance as tragedy struck. Team member Barry Wilson, 34, had a heart attack during a training session in May at Coronation Park. Valiant efforts by the team to save him were to no avail and his death on the park left many of them traumatised and distraught. Team manager Tim Price told the Chronicle Barry had been the team’s resident joker who could always lighten the mood: “Every team needs a member like Barry,” he said.
It looked like the end of the dream. But then his widow Yvonne visited the team to personally ask them to carry on competing in his memory. Her strength and fortitude in the face of his loss seems to have given them more determination to take part again and do well. They resumed their training with vigour. The visit to Charnock went well; they were joint winners with Dunfermline and the town began to look forward to the European Heat in Lisbon. Then it was revealed that the BBC would only pay for the 12 participating team members to go. The group of more than 20 had bonded so much and supported each other so well over the tragedy many felt it would be a huge disadvantage to only have a few travel. The town did what it always seems to in times of challenge by pulling together to overcome it. The town rallied around to raise the funds needed to get the whole team to Portugal. More than £2,000 flooded in to pay for them in just a couple of weeks, allowing Barry’s children and widow Yvonne to go along too.
The team gave an inspired display in the heat of
Portugal to come second and found themselves, thanks to their combined total, the British representatives at the ‘Jeux Sans Frontieres’ final in Yugoslavia. They were the smallest town ever to reach the TV programme’s prestigious final and Dartmouth revelled in their tag as ‘underdogs’, in true British fashion. In totally un-British fashion however, they actually won the competition.
The team, high on the totally unexpected and fantastic nature of their win, flew home to Britain and received universal acclaim – they were and remain the smallest town ever to be crowned winners of the competition. They were received like Royalty in the appropriately named Royal Avenue Gardens and toasted their success with the crowds, no-one quite believing what this small group of dedicated individuals, forged into a team by circumstance and tragedy, had punched above their weight consistently. It was the most positive story of the year and is still a source of pride in the town. A reformed version of the team competed in a special competition at Dartmouth Community College in 2006. Everyone was delighted to see the magic had not deserted them: they won the competition.•
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