Kenny must be getting on a bit now,
Do you remember Dave Corbett,(sooty) I think he has retired now.
What about WARISA from Wigan? They were doing both Bosnia and Kososvo. Some good guys on there one of which I’m still very good friends now.
Anyone ever know/see Spider (John) who was with WARISA; he had a spider tattooed on his forehead (mis-spent youth) but used to wear his fringe down over it in his ‘old age’■■ LOL
marcustandy:
What about WARISA from Wigan? They were doing both Bosnia and Kososvo. Some good guys on there one of which I’m still very good friends now.Anyone ever know/see Spider (John) who was with WARISA; he had a spider tattooed on his forehead (mis-spent youth) but used to wear his fringe down over it in his ‘old age’■■ LOL
I remember Warisa, dont remember any names though, always used to wave to each other when we passed.
Probably had a beer or three with one of their drivers, but we did a lot of drinking back then and some of it is a bit of a blur 
I remember Dave Corbett having an altercation with some yanks in a humvee at the MK/Kos border, funny looking back on wee things like that. iirc he had forearms like tree trunks, wouldn’t fancy a slap off him 
… Do you remember “little ■■■■”? He’s on for Punchards, apparently the lads there initially called him “wye aye” but soon changed it to “when I”
As some will know Davies Int.used to go to Croatia & Bosnia for JSL,we took the fresh & frozen down there for them,I belive that Davies went to Kosovo for them after I left in 2000. This a couple of us running down through Croatia, we are here with a couple of JSL’s taking 4 of Sobarts down on there first trip after being taken over,we were all on our way to Begonia in Bosnia after fist checking in at Split… 
This is of 4 of us at Zagreb also en-route to Split another time
Hi shady I guess you would know an old mate of mine Dave Goddard who used to work for Davies and still does a lot of freelance for them. Not a man to go out with for a beer as he does’nt understand the meaning of the phrase, I’m only having a couple and going to bed. I think the term ‘‘missing in action’’ was coined for him.
chazzer
davemackie:
Having had the misfortune to deal with these idiots, in Kosovo, I wonder if any on here had the same problem.
Dave.[/quote).5 Months have passed since this thread was posted. We have yet to be told what exactly Mr.Mackie,s problem was, with what he refers to as Stobart idiots. Which of them rattled your cage Dave?? Come on. Tell us. Let,s have a laugh.
Buycrider:
davemackie:
Having had the misfortune to deal with these idiots, in Kosovo, I wonder if any on here had the same problem.
Dave.
[/quote).5 Months have passed since this thread was posted. We have yet to be told what exactly Mr.Mackie,s problem was, with what he refers to as Stobart idiots. Which of them rattled your cage Dave?? Come on. Tell us. Let,s have a laugh.
I for one have been waiting with baited breath, come on Dave… Give us youngster’s a pearl of your wisdom.
Scotchbaz:
Buycrider:
davemackie:
Having had the misfortune to deal with these idiots, in Kosovo, I wonder if any on here had the same problem.
Dave.
[/quote).5 Months have passed since this thread was posted. We have yet to be told what exactly Mr.Mackie,s problem was, with what he refers to as Stobart idiots. Which of them rattled your cage Dave?? Come on. Tell us. Let,s have a laugh.
I for one have been waiting with baited breath, come on Dave… Give us youngster’s a pearl of your wisdom.
I wonder if Dave may have bumped into you Barry after you had had a beer or two in the Fish Bar?, Was not like you to have a fall out with anybody when you’d had a beer. Wib told Me last year that Pughy had died due to Liver failure.
I might have to hold my hands up for upsetting Mr Mackie…
When I was sat in my new volvo with my brand new trailer showing him some wage slips
Hi lads, it’s time to break my vow of silence,
First of all I am not having a go at Ex JSL Drivers, Kevin Pike & I were friends & work mates for many years.
My rant was about the many inexperienced Drivers that Stobart put on that contract, these lads may have been top of the list on RDC work, but on real big jobs they did not have a clue,
Their attitude seemed to be we are the main contractor, the rest of you are minions, that by the goodness of Mr Stobart’s heart are allowed to be here.
Now all of that didn’t really bother me that much, I was subbing for Astran, who as most of us will know had far more experience in those area’s than Stobart did.
What did bother me was the fact that these Hero’s went about like they owned it,.
Their attitude ■■■■■■ of many of the people we had to deal with, from Army Personnel to canteen & mess workers.
A great many of us on this forum will have used the road through Kosovo long before this little punch up started, & well experienced in local conditions, Stobart’s Drivers seemed to have all gone deaf, when been given advice on how to behave.
Does this go some way to answer your question.
Dave.
PS
What New Volvo, What New Trailer, What Wage Slips. 
.
Ha Ha, made you blink Dave,
When I read your post I thought it was for the reasons you stated but I did,nt say anything.
Your right Dave some of the guys who went there did not have the right experience or attitude. Personally I got on to Stobarts because I was subbing to JSL, but for me it was a good move.
The kit was better, the money was better and I had a great time doing the job.
Not all of us were idiots, but I think you know that and could probably judge us as individuals, not just a green shirt.
All the best Paul
It is not often that I blink, but hey I am getting older, thanks for your reply.
Dave.
davemackie:
It is not often that I blink, but hey I am getting older, thanks for your reply.Dave.
No probs Dave take care cheers Paul
Well there you go. Mr.Mackie and Oatcake 1967, have settled their differences and kissed and made up.
It is now clear that the original post was aimed directly at ALL ESL drivers who did the Bosnia and Kosovo job. I was one of those drivers. I can assure Mr.Mackie, and anyone else who refers to ALL of those Stobart drivers as “idiots”, that had you used that terminology directly at this particular Stobart driver, if we had encountered each other in Bosnia, Kosovo,or Tesco at Newport,( and I am not the only one ), then you would have found yourself in a confrontation situation. I did not do “convoying”, I always travelled on my jack. I never have needed anyone to hold my hand , or show me the way,in whatever I was doing, or wherever I was doing it at. I also have always treated anyone that I have met, in whatever situation, with the same respect as they are prepared to treat me with. If anyone then or now were to call me an idiot, or try to take the ■■■■ because I was wearing a clean shirt -tie-and uniform.then they were soon made aware of the fact that I come from the wrong background to take it lying down. If any Stobart driver(s) wound you up Dave, for whatever reason, then you should have been more specific in wording your post . I was wrongly included in it.
Your original post was as out of order in its sweeping assertion, as would be one headed " All former ME Drivers are Blowhards". All the Best. Robbo. Driver of Vehicle No. M100ESL, until I retired in Dec.1999; which I do not think would have ever got in anyone,s way, or given any reason to annoy them. 
I have no interest in getting involved with any infighting.All I have to say is that I was on the Shuttle a while back in ‘convoy’ doing Dell work with a driver from NI who had told me previously that he’d done a few runs to M/E.We sat and had a meal(yes,really!) with a Stobies driver taking tank tracks to Bosnia-ish.Turned out they knew about each other through talking about mates etc. Both very sensible people,and talked about stuff i’ve since read on here about the M/E. Are all drivers dipsticks? NO! Are all Stobies Bosnian drivers dipsticks? Definitely not.
Hi all, have been following this thread with interest and wondered just where abouts exactly in Bosnia to Stobbarts (or anyone else) deliver to?? Sarajevo, Zenica, Vitez, Banja luka etc etc■■?
What route do they take and what border do they cross through??
Cheers, bullitt.
bullitt:
wondered just where abouts exactly in Bosnia to Stobbarts (or anyone else) deliver to?? Sarajevo, Zenica, Vitez, Banja luka etc etc■■?
I’d say most loads went into Banja Luka as time wore on, although Split probably had more deliveries initially. Often, part of the load would be for the Metal Factory (BLMF - Banja Luka) and then the rest would be taken to Gornji Vakuf Tomato Factory or Precision Factory (GVT or GVP), Mkronic Grad Bus Depot or Mkronic Grad Shoe Factory (MGBD or MGSF), Sipovo (which had the Multi-National Military Hospital, Royal Engineers, Medics and Royal Logistic Corps in the same camp), Kupres (sort of halfway between Split and Banja Luka) and another (Artillery - AS90’s) base, the name of which escapes me just now.
bullitt:
What route do they take and what border do they cross through??
Through Slovenia and then it depended on where your first, or only, tip was. For just about all except Split, the Croatia-Bosnia border crossing was at Bos (Bosanska) Gradiska . . . . . . . once the new bridge had been built. There was another border crossing about 40km east of Bos Gradiska (Jasenovac) but it wasn’t supposed to be used by trucks; hang an SFOR badge in your window though, and you could do anything! I know of a certain few drivers who’s favourite game was to see how close/fast they could pass the Police and/or Border Guards (seeing as they were ‘untouchable’), the bonus points being awarded for getting their hat off in the draft of the trailer. 
This is aimed more at Stobarts as a company and has nothing at all to do with Kosovo but their attitude of putting drivers into positions and situations where they have not been properly trained for the job and thinking that it can be treated the same as driving up the M6 and delivering to RDC’s. Now I’m not getting at the drivers personally as they were dropped in at the deep end and I’m refering to those that were put on the contract with the Brawn GP F1 team last year when Stobarts said they would supply trucks and drivers to them on a contract after the demise of the old Honda team.
Unfortunately for the drivers some of whom had never even driven in Europe before they had not been shown how to use the trailers which were ongoing equipement from Honda and bore little resemblance to any GH trailer they would have encountered so instead of employing drivers from within the motor racing industry which would have meant Stobarts paying a lot more than they paid their own drivers they elected to pay them about £80.00 a day and £20.00 night out (if this is incorrect then I apologise but thats what one of the drivers told us) which is about half of what we normally got for this work. Not only this but they had to sleep in the trucks until the wednesday before a GP and before I get abuse over this all other teams and not just F1 expect drivers to use hotels rather than sleep in their vehicles so that they can have a shower and a good nights rest as they are nearly always double manned and several nights in cab for two drivers in the heat of summer on arriving at the next racetrack does not make for a pleasant atmosphere .
Going back to inexperience on these vehicles this was demonstrated very well at the second european race Monaco where we always had to wait in a parking area at the top of the hill above the principality until called down. When the Stobart/Brawn vehicles arrived they like all of us had to go down a concrete ramp onto a gravel area where all the race trucks were parked, now anyone who has seen these trucks will realize how low at the back they are and how they often have to be raised when going on or off ferries.
We were treated to the sight of the Stobart vehicles dragging the trailers down the bottom of the concrete ramps on the brackets at the rear of the chassis normally used to chain down the trailers on ferries resulting in half of them being worn away with the swan neck dragging on the catwalk of the brand new mercedes tractor units which Stobarts had supplied because their management had not seen fit to make sure that their drivers had been instructed in how to even lift the air suspension on trucks which cost hundreds of thousands of £’s to build.
Consequently none of the Stobart drivers were treated with any respect in the F1 paddock or indeed get any assistance as most of the regular truck drivers did’nt want Stobarts going into other teams and offering their services but where Stobarts made their biggest mistake was getting rid of the old Honda Transport Manager which ensured after all the other teams TM’s got to hear about it and did’nt want the same thing happening to them that they had no chance of getting a contract.
Unfortunately companies like Stobarts think that everything can be run the same as general haulage in the uk and put people in charge who have no experience of the job in question.
At least they did’nt have to wear a collar and tie.
.