Looking back to the 1990s there would be little argument with the proposition that Faireys was the band of that particular decade. Faireys could, and probably should, have won more titles under the leadership of first Peter Parkes and then James Gourlay but their consistency in major contests knew no bounds and they dominated for long spells at the top of BBW Magazine's rankings.

What then of the decade just ended? We could look at 'major' contest wins and settle the argument that way. For example, if we arbitrarily consider the National, British Open, European, All England Masters, English National and Brass in Concert then we find that Black Dyke, Cory and Fodens are tied with 8 wins each but Grimey trumps them all with 9 (albeit with 5 of them at Brass in Concert)!

Is this fair though? After all, Cory is ineligble for the 'English' and rightly or wrongly, Dyke never competes in Brass in Concert or the Masters. No, there's only one way to settle it and that's to look at the average rankings points earned by each band throughout the decade.

The four bands mentioned are not surprisingly the top four again but with a revised order as follows:

Black Dyke 24.98 (from 34 contests)

Cory 20.61 (45 contests)

Foden's 19.23 (51 contests)

Grimethorpe 17.99 (42 contests)

So there we have it. Black Dyke is the clear winner of our unofficial 'Band of the Decade' title with a ranking points average of 24.98.