Bikers say wrong night for a robbery

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Two armed thieves picked the wrong night to rob a Sydney club, disturbing a meeting of 50 motorcycle bikers, who tackled and hog-tied one of the thieves until police arrived.

The Southern Cross Cruiser Club was staging its monthly meeting on Wednesday night in the club in Sydney's west when two men armed with machetes entered the club and ordered patrons to lie on the ground and surrender their money.

But the balaclava-wearing bandits did not realize there were 50 bikers in the next room.

"I was in the middle of giving my meeting and someone ran in and said, "the place is being robbed'," biker club president Jester told local radio on Thursday.

"So we ran around the roller door out the front and as this guy opened the roller door, we crash tackled him in the doorway," Jester said.

The thief managed to escape the biker's tackle, but was caught again by the bikers.

"We caught him at the fence and crash-tackled him and hog-tied him to the ground and waited for the police to get there," said Jester.

"Yeah, he picked the wrong night I think," he said.

The other thief jumped over a balcony and ran into a nearby park, but was later caught by police.

"If they'd only looked, right when they walked in the main door, they would have seen 40 or 50 of us sitting there. Obviously they couldn't see out of the balaclavas, because they didn't even look," said Jester.