Competitions
10 March 2026
Drennan Extend Major Sponsorship Deal with Angling Trust England Feeder Team
The Angling Trust are delighted to confirm that Drennan International has extended its sponsorship of the World Champs-winning England Feeder team for a further four years.
The new deal will see Dean Barlow’s squad receive major backing right through to April 2031 and follows an incredibly successful three seasons together.
In 2025, the England Feeder squad dominated the World Championships in Lithuania, winning team gold in one of their toughest tests ever on the massive Skirvyte River.
They followed it up a few months later with an unbelievable performance at the European Feeder Cup in Belgium where they not only won the team event by a massive margin but finished with four anglers in the top six too, including an individual gold for Steve Ringer and silver for Adam Wakelin.
“Drennan International is pleased to announce the extension of our sponsorship of the England Feeder Team for a further four years,” said Drennan’s Gary Barclay.
“We are proud to support a team of exceptionally talented anglers expertly managed by Dean Barlow. The team is preparing to compete at the World Championships in Italy this April, and we will be there to capture all the action. While the venue presents its challenges, with the team currently ranked number one in the world, we are confident of another strong performance.”
This year the team are heading to Italy’s Ostellato Canal in mid-April where bream, carp, and carassio are the main targets. With hardly any movement and at 90 yards wide, it’s a big water that the team will fancy winning a medal from, having won bronze there in 2018.
Dean has confirmed his squad for the 2026 event too, with Steve Ringer again earning the captain’s armband and leading out Will Freeman, Lee Kerry, Mac Stephens, Adam Wakelin, and Rob Wootton.
The management team supporting Dean is Graham West, Scott Smith, Tom Noton, and Gareth Lambert.
“I’ve picked a strong experienced squad who can all cast the distances required, are superb big water anglers and who have one aim – to retain the title,” Dean said. “With Drennan’s brilliant support we’re leaving no stone unturned, but it’ll be very different to 2018 with completely different fish. That means going back to square one with tactics and it’ll also be three days of fishing this year, not two as in previous years after four practice days. That won’t matter to these lads though.”
And skipper Steve Ringer revealed they’re well into their preparations, including planning around a major change to this year’s FIPSed event which will see the competition extended from two match days to three.
“I’ve made enquiries with anglers I know in Italy and it’s looking like it’ll be a big fish match,” Steve revealed. “The carp and carassio are around 1lb apiece plus an odd big bream. That sounds like needing a patient trap-setting match where we might be fishing for six or eight bites with multiple lines. I’m also happy to have three match days, as there’s more chance of mounting a comeback but also it allows us to experiment on day one – we don’t want to blow out but trying things and ruling them out or in quickly can be a big advantage for days two and three.”
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