 His problem in the early years was the number of penalty points he accrued for hitting gates.In early 1977, Pete Keane (a member of the senior British C1 team) got Fox a place at the Spring senior training camp in Matlock, Derbyshire, where Fox impressed the renowned technical coach Ken Langford and began, what was to become, a long and successful relationship.At the first race of the season on the River Tay at Grandtully in Scotland, to the disbelief of other paddlers, Fox went faster than the current British No.1 and future world champion, Albert Kerr, but again suffered from too many penalty points.