Tour Begins

The feeling I get each time I'm at the Club on the morning of tour is incredible. It's like being a little kid again on the morning of your birthday or Christmas, having woken too early, just sitting there waiting for everyone else to get up so that you can open your presents. It's one of those moments where you know that you're going to have some great laughs with your best friends.

Herman jumped in with me, the car stocked up with all our clothes, cricket gear and beers. The journey down took just over 2 hours with Bandai trailing us. He was carrying Dazza who had made a welcome return to England just to come on tour with us (admittedly he had only been in Scotland seeing family and friends). Dazza had come over from Tasmania to play with us back in 1998 along with Minty. They were both great cricketers and top blokes too. In fact I had travelled out to Tassie that Winter and stayed with Minty for about a month.

Our usual meet in Bickleigh at the Fisherman's Cot started with an attempt to fix the faulty passenger window. Pritts lent me a screwdriver and I tried to get it sorted, eventually leaving it wound up never to be opened again. Oh the woes of owning a classic car. As ever the food at the pub was tremendous and the views fantastic, marred only very slightly by a few spits of rain.

Onward to Thorverton for the first game of the tour. I had been pencilled in to play this match but as Bro was coming down just for the one day I sat it out so that he could get at least one game in. Thorverton are a fun side and we have played this game first on tour for as long as I can remember. As ever the game was played in great spirits and when they heard that tomorrow's game against Filleigh had been called off they offered us another match to fill the gap in. We obviously accepted their generous offer and after a few beers with them all we made for the hotel.


A shower and a quick settle in to the rooms and we were ready to hit the town hard. The plan was to converge on the local Aussie theme bar and then stagger onto Rococos, possibly the cheesiest nightclub in Exeter but the scene of some cracking times on previous tours. A few shots later and we dragged ourselves out of the Walkabout bar and made for the nightclub. It wasn't as busy as it usually gets when we first arrived so we sat at the bar and started on some more drinks. Taffy and Herman were practicing their model poses made famous in the comedy Zoolander, the latter using this as his "pull story." The night improved as more and more of the locals arrived and the place was soon pumping to the sounds of dance music and we were all gracing the floor and the blocks with our presence.

As is always the case with Roccocos the best place to pick up is in the Golden Horn kebab house on the corner having just left; Bandai and Robins obliged picking up two of the most horrendous specimens of the female form. I'm not prepared to go into details, not because I'm a prude but simply because I may vomit over the keyboard as I type. I'm feeling a little queasy at the thought so I'll sign off. See you tomorrow.

3rd XI Day

I finally had a day where the things I needed to get done were possible. For sometime now the car had been without a CD Player, only because I didn't have the time or skills to fit the one I had taken out of the previous car :S Pritts kindly offered to help me with it when time permitted so I had arranged to meet with him in the afternoon to try and get it done.

Today was also our club's 3rd XI day. The 1st and 2nd XI's did not have a fixture and so arrangements were made for the 3rd XI to play at the home ground with the support of both the senior sides. It also happened to be the day before our annual cricket tour which made sure that everyone was in party mood!

Finally, one of previous overseas players was making a return to the club so that he could come on tour with us. DL hadn't changed a bit and was soon the life and soul of the day necking lagers with the rest of us and watching the cricket which was a surprisingly interesting match.

Pritts and I had actually missed almost an entire innings whilst we had gone off to work on the car. 9 wickets had fallen in the hour and half that we had spent fitting the CD player and fixing the dodgy passenger window, respectively.

Our lads had bowled the opposition out for 125 and when we got back Teed had made 27 of the 30 runs on the board with the other 3 having been byes! He went on to made a solid half century and saw the team home to victory. Another valuable 20 points for the 3rds and more reason to drink!

The excitement about the pending tour was clear to see on the faces spread around the clubrooms, new players yet to experience it, older lags that had been on numerous trips and those of us that had missed out on what tour was all about for one reason or another. I was brimming, this was the first tour for quite some time where I would be able to enjoy myself properly. I would also get to sample what sharing a place with Herman was going to be like prior to spending 6 months living side-by-side.

For what is likely to be the best week of the summer, read on over the coming posts...