Note: Case the joint before trying to rob it.

This may be a candidate for the Darwin Awards. Two balaclava-clad would be robbers, one wielding a machete and the other a samurai sword (go figure) might have done better to check out the patrons of the establishment first.

Machete wielding masked bandits picked the wrong club to rob yesterday - 40 biker club members were meeting there.

Police said the robbers raided the Regents Park Sporting Club about 8.50pm yesterday, ordering people at the bar to lie on the floor.

But the robbers failed to notice 40 members of the Southern Cross Cruiser Club, gathered in the nearby auditorium.

Oh... oops.

"The two guys burst in with machetes and started waving them around and intimidating people," said bikie club founder "The Bear".

"They walked in to try and do a robbery and thought there'd just be people playing bingo and poker machines.

"But there were also 40 blokes there having a social night and it's come unstuck for them."

Keywords to keep in mind if you plan on robbing a place. One of the regulars is named "The Bear". Unstuck... not happy.

The robbers immediately fled on seeing the bikies approaching, with one running through a plate glass window, leaping off a five-metre balcony and running through a bowling green, and the other escaping behind the bar.

But biker club president Jerry "Jester" van Cornwall and other members ran to the back of the club, waiting for the fleeing robber to emerge from the back entrance.

"As this guy opened up the roller door we crashed tackled him in the doorway," van Cornwall told ABC 702 radio.

The man wriggled free, but was pursued and crash-tackled again by Mr van Cornwall, who restrained him until police arrived.

When being pursued by 40 unstuck bikers, a plate glass window is no obstacle. "Restrained" according to other reports means "hog-tied".

"It was very hard to see the expression on their faces because of the balaclavas, but I imagine it was something along lines of 'Oh shit, what have we done here?'."

Pucker factor 5, Mr. Sulu.

Emphasizing the point that you should always know your target and if it's a biker hangout you might want to give it a pass:

Regents Park Sporting Club manager Eddie Kiosoff said the bikers had been regulars at the club for about a year, visiting a few nights a week.

Just to clarify, the Southern Cross Cruiser Club is not an outlaw biker gang. They just don't like it when their evening becomes unstuck.