A PENSIONER has been banned from angling competitions for the good of his own health after collapsing twice in two days.

Norman McLelland, from Launton, near Bicester,whose fishing team is called the Coffin Dodgers, suffered a heart attack at the Oakfield Fishery, near Aylesbury, just two days after passing out during a competition at Alders Farm, near Milton Keynes.

Now match organiser Trevor Price has told the 71-year-old that he is not allowed anywhere near a fishing rod until he gets better.

He said it was the first time he has been forced to ban anyone from fishing for health reasons.

Mr Price said: “It sounds corny, but we have become a little family to him. I am always on at him about not doing this or that.

“Some people think I am wrong to get involved like this, but I do not want him dying at one of our fishing matches.”

Mr McLelland, a bachelor who had a triple heart bypass 21 years ago, first collapsed at a competition at Alders Farm on Sunday, February 6, and had to be revived by top angler Gary Thorpe.

But, after a stay in Milton Keynes Hospital, he ignored doctors’ advice and was back in competition two days’ later.

He said: “I had been fishing all day and been quite well.

“At the end of the match, I was putting my gear in the car and I suddenly thought I was going to be sick. A couple of lads said I had gone as white as a sheet, and then I started gasping for breath but couldn’t get it.”

He was rushed to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital in an ambulance, where doctors told him he had suffered a further heart attack and fitted a new coronary stent to widen an artery.

But after being discharged, he immediately tried to book a place at the following weekend’s Winter League Match.

Mr Price said he would only be allowed back once the doctor had given him the all-clear.

Mr McLelland, who is now recuperating at home, said: “This heart attack has brought home to me what a fine bunch of friends I have, all trying to look after me better than I do myself.

“Trevor has been on at me to pack up smoking and not to do this or that. I always say I will be okay, but now he has put his foot down.

“I have decided to set myself a date and not start fishing again until the end of March.”

He added: “I have racked my brains, but I cannot put the heart attack down to any particular thing.

“I have been fishing for too many years to get excited about it.

“But if you took it away from me altogether, you may as well chop off my right arm.”