Of all the sports clubs, in all the towns, in all the world, a pair of machete-wielding thieves last night walked into the wrong bar for an armed robbery.

Two masked men burst into the Regents Park Sporting and Community Club in western Sydney at around 9pm and ordered the patrons onto the floor. Only then did they realise their mistake - they had just interrupted the monthly meeting of the local biker gang.

As a result, 50 burly members of the Southern Cross Cruiser Club paused their get-together before subduing the hapless thieves with tables, chairs and electrical wire.

Both would-be robbers were arrested and one of them rushed to hospital once the emergency services arrived on the scene.

"These guys were absolutely dumb as bricks," Jerry Vancornewal, the club's leader, told CNN. "I can't believe they saw all the bikes parked up front and they were so stupid that they walked in.

“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.

“I was in the middle of giving my meeting and someone ran in and said, ‘the place is being robbed’.”

The first of the bandits was captured by the bikers as he ran through the service entrance and away from the bar. “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 Mr Vancornewal, known as Jester. “Yeah, he picked the wrong night I think.”

The other thief made a more concerted effort to escape, but also ended up in police custody. Flummoxed by the bar’s unusual clientele he leapt straight through a plate glass window and then jumped from a balcony and ran into a nearby park.

Jim Webb, the club’s night supervisor, watched the 20-year-old crash through the glass. "All he had to do was push the button and it automatically opened,” he said.

"They (the robbers) thought they had the upper advantage with their knives and their machetes. They didn't expect to run into a bunch of guys carrying chairs and tables."

Police confirmed that club patrons subdued the first man until officers arrived. The suspect turned out to be a 16-year-old boy.

Both of them were charged with attempted armed robbery and "face disguised with intent to commit indictable offense".

A getaway driver who was waiting in a car outside apparently fled the scene when the bikers started throwing pieces of furniture at him. Police are still looking for him.

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