The great Bucks Fizz feud: Why are stars at each other's throats 30 years after Eurovision win?

By Barbara Davies for the Daily Mail
Updated: 12:52 EDT, 23 April 2011

Thirty years after their Eurovision triumph, Bucks Fizz could be forgiven for wanting to get together and reminisce about the good old days.

And so it was last week that Cheryl Baker, Mike Nolan and Jay Aston appeared on prime-time TV, performing their 1981 hit Making Your Mind Up along with an eye-watering reincarnation of their iconic skirt-ripping scene.

But those who saw their performance on ITV1’s The Alan Titchmarsh Show couldn’t help but notice that even allowing for their advance into middle age, there was something very different about the group. Someone was missing. The fourth member of Bucks Fizz, Bobby G, was to be found a couple of hundred miles away in Tiverton, Devon, packing up a white transit van for the long drive to Mundesley Holiday Village in Norfolk, where he and his version of Bucks Fizz had star billing on Saturday night.

Champions of Europe: The original Bucks Fizz lineup in 1981. Clockwise from top left Bobby Gee, Mike Nolan, Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston

Three decades after all four singers became one of the most successful pop acts of the Eighties, they are trapped in a bitter rift. In effect, there are two versions of Bucks Fizz: one run by Bobby G, who never left the original Eurovision-winning group and whose wife Heidi Manton owns the trade mark to the band name; and the other made up of Baker, Nolan and Aston, who reunited in 2009 calling themselves The Original Bucks Fizz.
Confused? So, no doubt, are the trade mark officers reviewing the legal row between the two warring camps.

What they must decide is which band should be allowed to call itself Bucks Fizz: Bobby G and his three companions, who are a regular fixture on the holiday camp and cruise ship circuit; or Baker, Nolan and Aston, who are due to perform at the London Palladium in July and are releasing a Greatest Hits album.

Determined: Bobby G, real name Robert Gubby, believes he has the right to the Bucks Fizz trademark

Baker, 57, Nolan, 56, and Aston, 49, have applied for the Bucks Fizz name to be granted to their group. But Bobby G, 53 — whose real name is Robert Gubby — is determined to hang on to it. Indeed, he wants to prevent his rivals from even using their Original Bucks Fizz variant (or OBF, as we shall call it, for the sake of brevity).

His argument is that because he has been a member of Bucks Fizz since its formation in 1981, his group is the original one, despite the fact that the singers who support him are unrecognisable from the line-up that won Eurovision. ‘The original Bucks Fizz is the group whose origins date to its creation in 1981 and that is our group,’ says the father of three, who’s no longer on speaking terms with his former bandmates.

‘They are not the original Bucks Fizz; we are. I’ve never left Bucks Fizz. I’ve been doing this for 30 years.

‘Michael, Cheryl and Jay are taking action because they can’t use the name. But I’m not giving up the name Bucks Fizz to someone who hasn’t traded under it for the past 25 years and who never gained any rights to it in the first place. I have to defend myself. This is my livelihood.’

His three former bandmates believe that in the eyes of the public, at least, they look more like the real Bucks Fizz.

They have also accused their old colleague of phoning promoters and booking agents, warning of potential legal consequences if they employ OBF.

All in all, then, a sorry state of affairs for a group that was once seen as Britain’s answer to Abba and  went on to notch up three British Number Ones and 15 million record sales worldwide.

The band was put together via auditions in 1980 with the sole purpose of performing in the following year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Bobby G was juggling a day job as a builder and an evening job starring as Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar in the West End.

The song Making Your Mind Up, which beat Germany by just four votes, brought all four singers overnight fame.

The record’s producers, who owned the rights to the band name, were determined to capitalise on their instant popularity. Bucks Fizz recorded a debut album and went on tour. They were even nominated for a Brit Award.

But behind the sunny image of the four blond singers, the seeds were being sown for one of the longest feuds in the British music industry. The first nail in the band’s coffin was a 1984 coach crash, which happened when the group was returning from a sell-out concert in Newcastle.

All four singers were injured and required hospital treatment, but Mike Nolan suffered severe head injuries and spent three days in a coma. From then on, the group seemed to drift apart.

A year later, while Nolan was still recovering from his injuries, Aston announced she was leaving the group. She was forced to buy her way out of her contract — forcing her to sell her home and leaving her virtually penniless.

Cheryl was the next to go, in 1993, after deciding to start a family and pursue a TV career on shows such as Record Breakers and The Saturday Picture Show. Nolan left in 1996, leaving Bobby G as the only surviving original member.

Comeback: Cheryl Baker, Mike Nolan and Jay Aston, who hope to cash in on renewed interest in Bucks Fizz with their own revamped version of the group

In the years that followed, various singers have joined and left Bobby G’s Bucks Fizz. His wife, Heidi — who has been in the group for 18 years — acquired the Bucks Fizz trade mark in 2001 from their former management company. But according to Dean Dunham, the lawyer representing OBF, ownership was gained ‘through the back door’.

‘When she applied, it was disputed by Mike Nolan,’ says Dunham. ‘He didn’t think the trade mark should be owned by someone who wasn’t one of the original four. But he’d never completely recovered from the coach accident. The dispute made him ill and he had to discontinue the legal battle.’

In 2004, BMG Records released all of Bucks Fizz’s original studio albums on CD, reigniting interest in the group.

The same year, Bobby G linked up briefly with Nolan and Baker for a handful of performances in a one-off Eighties retro tour. Afterwards, he returned to his own Bucks Fizz group, while Baker and Nolan decided to carry on together. In 2009, Jay Aston joined them.

In January this year, tensions with Bobby G grew to epic proportions when the trio announced plans for a 30th anniversary tour and a new album. Bobby G began phoning concert promoters to warn them off his rivals.

‘I have given notice to different promoters that what they are doing is infringing the trade mark,’ he says. ‘They shouldn’t be promoting this. It’s something they should be advertising correctly.’

Ultimately, it may well be the public perception of Bucks Fizz that decides the argument.
According to Dunham, Bobby G’s use of the Bucks Fizz name is ‘unfair’ and ‘misleading’ to the public.

‘Under the Trade Marks Act, if the use of a trade mark is confusing the public, as it clearly is in this case, you can apply for it to be revoked,’ says Dunham.

‘And when you’ve got three original members in one band and the other has only one original member, the one with three clearly looks more like the original band.

‘Bobby G has been turning up at the likes of Butlins advertising as Bucks Fizz, and I’m told people were expecting to see Cheryl, Mike and Jay, but what they got was Bobby G and three unknowns.’ The whole mess is being sorted out by the Intellectual Property Office. A hearing is expected in June or July.

Of course, what die-hard Bucks Fizz fans really want is to see all four original members back performing together. But Bobby G says he is happier performing with his wife.

‘I want to carry on working with Heidi,’ he says. ‘We do some lovely work around Europe, a few cruises and theatre dates with The Krankies and Cannon and Ball.

‘I have a great life and I don’t want to change it.’

He insists he is not trying to stop the others from performing, but wants them to ‘differentiate’ their act from his.

‘It’s not for me to suggest what they should call themselves,’ he says. ‘As long as it’s not trying to be something that’s in the market already.’

However, Dunham is confident that Baker, Nolan and Aston will win the day. ‘We have overwhelming evidence,’ he says. ‘We’ve got accounts of situations where people at Bobby G’s concerts have been chanting: “Where’s Cheryl?” ’

Happy days: Bucks Fizz with their Eurovision trophy, before rifts tore the original group apart

Bobby G, who is representing himself without a lawyer, is equally self-assured and says he may claim for damages ‘when’ the case is settled in his favour.

‘A decision will be made based on the Trade Marks Act,’ he says. ‘There is no room for any opinion in any of this.’

But the stance he is taking is causing outrage among Bucks Fizz fans, who are discussing the row relentlessly on internet forums.

One writes: ‘To the fans, this will only make him seem petty. Sorry, Bobby, but it’s true.’

And another: ‘This debate is about who the fans regard as Bucks Fizz and who the fans prefer to see.’

The danger is that the ugly war of words between the two parties will drive away support from them both.

Bobby G insists there is room for two groups, if only they can resolve the matter of their names.

Before setting off for Norfolk last weekend, he watched his former bandmates perform on TV.

‘I thought it was good,’ he says. ‘It was the best thing they’ve done for quite a long time. Cheryl’s lost a lot of weight. They’ve styled themselves. It was fine.’

Under the circumstances, this is high praise, indeed.

But 30 years on, there is little doubt that Bucks Fizz, the fun-loving pop act that won over the nation with a catchy tune and a couple of Velcro-fastened skirts, is in danger of losing its sparkle.