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Our summer rally is called 'Tossin the Slipper' 97,98,99,02. The first rally we put on was in 1997. This was called funnily enough 'Tossin the Slipper 1'. It was supposed to be held at the Casuals Rugby Club in Northampton. Unfortunately some gypsies decided that the pitches that we were going to use would be a good site for their caravans. After talking to the commitee about the gypsies they promised us that they would be moved in time for our rally. We started looking for a back up site just in case and found another rugby club that would let us use their fields just round the corner. As it happened the gypsies moved on the Wednesday before the rally but the Environmental Health said that it wasn't in a fit state to hold the event. So a few stratigically placed signs and the rally had a new venue. On the Friday of the rally it was pissing down with rain and the field was a bit boggy but people started coming and the site looked good. We were using the clubhouse for the bands which were Red Dog on Friday Night and Ambush on Saturday night. We had a couple of bands on the Saturday afternoon who were friends of club members. These played for free and were on a makeshift stage that we had set up in the field. The rain had stopped for a little while but some people didn't turn up because in other areas in the country it was too dangerous to travel. We were quite lucky with the weather by all accounts. Silly games went on Saturday afternoon and Rally virgins were suitably embarrased. All in all despite the weather and considering it was our first rally all went very well indeed.
The second rally we put on was the next year in 1998. We approached the same rugby club as the year before and we wanted to put up a marquee on the site to make the stage bigger because it was a bit of a squash before. They said they thought it would be a bit loud and there were some houses quite close by. So we were on the lookout for another site. We found a pub at Hannington called the Red House. It had a big grassy area and the landlord was a chef so it looked ideal. We hired a marquee from Bedford MAG and we were set. We had a band on Friday night which was another band that the club knew and Saturday we had Red Dog. This was a well turned out rally and was even better than the one the previous year. The weather still wasn't brilliant and we thought we were cursed in some way. It was supposed to be July after all.
The third rally was in 1999 and was at Hollowell Steam Rally Field and everything went right this time. The weather was fantastic, we had about 200 people turn up on the Friday night. Unfortunately the food van broke down on the way and didn't turn up till about 10.00pm. So it was down to Safeways for us and we bought up their supplies of barbeque stuff. We cooked our own food on the Friday and it was alright. We sold our own beer as well for the weekend. We had bought 2000 cans for the weekend, which we thought would be plenty. We didn't allow for the heat and the thirst and ended up going out and buying some more on the Saturday. We sold 3750 cans that weekend. There were about 400 people there all told. We had bands on Friday and Saturday nights in a big marquee that the Steam Rally, which was the week before had left up for us. All the usual rally stuff went on during the weekend and had some good comments from the people who attended.
We had a few years off the rally scene after the Hollowell bash and our next rally was in 2002. It was called 'Tossin the Slipper 4'. It was a trad style rally in the clubhouse of Cogenhoe Football Club. This is where we have our Rock Nights. There were no bands but we had a disco going on for most of the night. When I say most of the night it actually finished at 8.00am the next morning. It had all the usual rally stuff though (silly games, bike show etc.) but a bit smaller. We have had three winter rallies as well called 'Wot no Tossin' 97,98,99. The first two were held at the Red House pub in Hannington. The first one was very cold but we sold all the prebook tickets and it was a good winter do. They had the open fire on and the landlord did all the food and the disco played some good rock tunes. The second one was a repeat of the first. All the tickets were sold but the weather was attrocious. It was blowing a force 9 gale and about a third of the people who bought tickets didn't make it. However the bash was good and everybody who was there had a good time. The third rally was held at Cogenhoe Football Club and we called it a Christmas rally. It wasn't as well turned out as the other two. I think it was a bit too close to Christmas and a lot of people had made other plans for that time of year.
Have a look at some photos here
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