The ‘tour’ is basically the chance for everyone to get away for a weekend, sometimes play a game of footy, but definately to get pissed, think of it as La Manga circa 1996, avec Gazza. After consulting the players it was decided that we should go camping somewhere in the south of England, and so I set out to find a campsite that would accomodate a group of 13 men. This is where the trouble started.
It appears that there are hardly any campsites that will take on single-sex groups, or even just large groups, damn! After ringing-up or emailing all the campsites in Bognor Regis, Chichester, Southsea areas plus a few others dotted around that could actually boast being near anywhere that we could have fun, we turned to sites nearer the Ringwood area, as our Goalkeepers missus is from that area. It was looking pretty bad as this time, but luckily last Tueday, Dean (Goalie) managed to find a campsite that would accomodate us!
The campsite in question was actually attached to a pub called the ‘Sir Walter Tyrrell‘, a bonus, but it was miles away from anywhere else, so we would have to make our own entertainment, but at east we were getting away. phew.
Everything seemed to slot into place for the weekend, and I must say that I had an excellent time. It could’ve ended up completely different with everyone getting bored out of their skin, but fate helped us in that it seemed we’d booked in when a busy weekend had been planned by the campsite owners. Karaoke had been organised for the Saturday night, which involved everyone’s names getting jotted down to sing various random songs (I was lucky enough to have the female part in ‘Time of My Live’), and we drank a lot as we had all put a fair bit into the kitty. A good evening by all, but not the end, for the next day was the ‘Rustic Games’!
The Pub had arranged the rustic games, along with various stalls, whack the rat (a sexual euphemism no doubt), a hog-roast, raffle, and tombola, etc. We entered 2 teams of 6 people, Preston Farmers Phats and Preston Farmers Smalls (we had previously convinced them that the F.C. stood for farmers club, as our club crest has a tractor on it), which divided the club members depending on their weight.
The events were: Welly Throwing, Horseshoe tossing, bobbing for apples, egg catching, and the infamous Tug of War.
We all put up a good show, even winning the prestigious Tug of War (Phats), but were beaten into 2nd place. After the awards ceremony we made our way back to civilisation, but had made a good impression because the Landlady invited us back next year, along with the promise of a game of footy against a local team.
I’ve now got the rest of the week off, but have got nothing planned, so I’m gonna spend the day fixing an old computer, checking up on people’s blogs, and doing nothing too exhausting.
