1980 - The road to success

California Girls	God Only Knows	Mack The Knife
Solitaire	Drum Display	Chatanooga Choo Choo
Land Of Hope And Glory	Auld Lang Syne

This was the bands first full year in competition. The season began with an appearance at the National Youth Marching Band Championships on Saturday 22nd March at the Royal Albert Hall. Out of seven regional championships entered around the country, a total of 27 trophies were won, including four supreme titles.

On Saturday 5th July, the very first International Festival of Marching Bands was held at the Wembley Arena. Bands of various styles from all over the world were invited to take part in the event and it proved to be a tremendous success. The Bristol Unicorns were placed as the overall runners-up in the competition. The following day the band travelled to Hove for a regional contest where they beat the current British Champions, Thurrock Marching Brass. Over a weekend of competition the Bristol Unicorns had collected a total of ten trophies.

The band came up against the reigning champions later at Brighton on 13th September and once again brushed them aside, winning the supreme title and eight caption trophies.

Trophy Haul

It was because of these successes that the band was invited to compete at the British Marching Band Championships on October 18th at Wembley Arena. After being placed fifth in the British Youth Band Association League (a league table set up averaging the results of regional competitions throughout the year), the band came sixth out of twenty six at the B.M.B.C. This was an excellent and encouraging start to the Unicorns competitive history.