Whitehaven IIs 45, Blaydon Bricks 34 - The ‘how many outfits can one bloke wear’, tour

Keith is getting married in August, yes the very end and will miss the start of the season, don’t blokes know when the rugby season is by now…..

Our thanks to Russ and Windy who were responsible for arranging stuff and driving the bus

Keith had various outfits of his own, that I’m sure were allfashionable, but aside from travelling over in normal clothes and coming back similar, he was in ‘Pink Hello Kitty’ Gear for the game and a Nuns outfit, stocking, etc. for the night on the town Saturday.

What was worse, will stick in my mind (and on the video) for a long time was witnessing Cliff and Windy dressing him.

Photos, not to be opened with Kids around …..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26086313@N08/collections/72157631147235968/

This Tour/Stag doo had everything:

. The ‘plan’ (I use it loosely) was worked out well in advance, meet at 3:30 at the club, tell people we were leaving at 4, but expect to be away by 4:30.

. The text went out, Strachs; ooh! can’t do till 4, GB; ooh! me and Keith can’t make it till 5, Nat can’t make it till after 4, 3:45 we were all sitting with a beer in the club ready to go, except:

• Chester who had a school cup match till 6pm and would drive over later, 6:45 we picked up Chester as we were still drinking in the club bar, best laid plans of mice and men.

• I spent loads of the time on Friday and Saturday on calls for work, but it did not stop the lads drinking…. Phew!

• Steph had brought a pack lunch for the bus and Stracks a box of bud

• We did not get past Wylam before Nat jumped out the bus at the lights for a first of many P stops, the other person who had a ‘small’ bladder was Windy…

• Sam Morton came out of hiding for a few days and came over with Chris

• We had a number of Workington Virgins, Strachs, Stan,Wardy, Nat, Liam, to name a few and all had a good time

• Lowsey had permanent marker, which he unleashed on Boggle as he slept, see his facebook page, he must have a few layers of skin missing to wash those off

• One of the tour went MIA, until about 3pm on Sunday ….

• Whitehaven were great hosts, would recommend any club go across for a game and would be delighted to host them at Blaydon, see details of the game

•Would advise you set off earlier, as even when you can see the club, it is not easy to find the way into the car park

• Mrs Costello’s amazon history is now legendary, given Russ got her to order Keith’s outfits

• Those pegs – it’s always amazing how much attention a peg on everyone clothes attracts

• Beds aren’t made like they used to be for £65 especially with both Winters, PC, and a goat charging Chestello(that’s Chester by the way)

The game:

• Remind me never to arrange early kick offs on tour, sure Brian will be proud of that management decision

• Bruce, PC and Smudge made a comeback and no doubt all suffered, personally speaking I struggled to walk back from the bars up town ….

• We had Chester, Liam, Stan, Cliff and Lowsey injured on the side line

• We had 14 players, 48 cans of Stella and Port

•Whitehaven had about 12 subs, even though we had been informed they had 15 players with some youngsters and few old timers, the rest were Rugby League whippets.

•We knew it was going to be a hard afternoon when they announced it was uncontested scrums (we had about 8 front 5s) as we were not the most mobile team the Bricks had ever put out, and weren’t sober till about Tuesday…..

• To set the record straight (whilst spoiling the match report, not something I do very often) we were offeredthem as needed, but aside from me coming off after about 65 (felt like 165) mins, our 13 (not sure anyone told them they could come off for a rest) played throughout and they kept bringing on fresh legs, much to the amusement of our team who had been up till 3 (some later) the night before.

•We had Arche (young one) guesting at full back (just for Ming…) who made some great breaks but also some really dodgy tackles and his kicks…….. straight to a rather quick full back to give us something to chase…..

• Ahh! nearly forgot at 02:30 in the bar, may have been a beer involved, Keith announced he was playing Fly half, well he is not called pe*is fingers without good reason, so playing outside was looking a dull day. So a management decision was needed, but no one was sober and no one knew who was in charge anyway, so we took the field with Keith in a ‘Hello Kitty’ nice little onesienumber at 10. Well their first possession, he left his post, dived into a ruck and never came back to 10. Fair to say Whitehaven, being sober, spotted the 10 had legged it and ran straight through the gap, first try scored. So the back row we had loaned from Whitehaven went into the centre and in steps Wardy to 10.

•Stan was giving Wardy some stick for his drop kicks, butWardy assured us it was he was just trying to hit Keith, who was not anywhere near where he should have been….

• One of my trade mark inside switches, took out the Whitehaven backrow, flyhalf, centres and half of sunlight in Whitehaven (it’s a long way round me these days) and the ball was popped to Nat, out along the backline for a simple, if not lengthy run in for Chris, who got three trys on the day and still has not bought the jug…..

• Everyone was so drunk, even Nat missed some tackles

• The opposition; great club, really hospitable, broth was fantastic, they had a past players day, shame more of them weren’t paying (from the guy trying to catch whippets, well lot faster than me, but so was drying paint) we must have shared about 90 cans at half time and after the game on the pitch after an early kick off (why did I do an early KO in a tour again) and then their 1s had a good victory against Blackburn, before numerous jugs of beer and the compulsory couple of drinking races.

• Half time Whitehaven supplied beer, which I think only us and their supporters drunk, but we didn’t care and back to do battle for second half

• The result about 45 to 34, but the ref, who also stopped one of their trys by tackling their player, called it a draw, so I’m happy to rewrite the match report to align.

The team:

1. Paul W
2. Keith
3. Steph
4. Windy
5. Chris Morton
6. Strachs
7. Nathan
8. PC
9. Smudge
10. Wardy
11. Chris Collins
12. Bruce
13. Guest
14. Craig Barlow
15. Arche