TOUR REPORT – CAMBUSTERS 2008

Friday

Chocks away…

“Do you know where your team leader will be?” was the first thing the security guard asked upon our arrival at Pontins in the gloriously picturesque ahem settings of Camber Sands. “In the bar of course Old Bean” was the reply he got as we drove in leaving the Security Guard quite perplexed. Obviously he didn’t know quite what he was in for with this rugby tour weekend. Of course our team leaders were in the bar which pretty much set the precedent for the rest of the weekend.

The first tour meeting was at 19.00 hours outside the block where the majority of the tour party were situated. The men as ever were taking the theme very seriously with RAF gear, flying hats, pipes and flying jackets galore but the Chambers contingent out did everybody with full RAF uniform being worn by every member. Tour rules were read out, tour judge introduced, Nipper the dog (for those who weren’t touring Nipper was a paper maché dog on a skateboard who a nominated person had to look after for one hour and also doubled up as a place to put fines) was given to one of the twins, tin hats given to all the snitches (for this year only known as hodges), and tour shirts were given out…or they should have been but the man who was supplying them, Brooksy, was notable by his absence. The touring party was then manoeuvred to the front gate to greet Brooksy where other people turning up were left wondering what on earth they were letting themselves in for this weekend. Alas the party got hungry so another meeting was scheduled for 20.00 hours in which to get the tour shirts. Fortunately they were quite natty but it did however leave Brooksy a wanted man on the first night.

The remainder of the evening was spent in the “club” upstairs by the adults with the women rather taking a liking to the rule of having to call mayday when their drinks were empty as it meant the men actually paid attention to them and got them another drink when normally they wouldn’t have bothered. Much dancing ensued and then, when a rubbish song came on and everyone had returned to their seats, a doodlebug call. A doodlebug, for those of you who don’t know, is the colloquial name for the german V-1 guided missile according to wikipedia and in the case of tour meant that everyone had to take cover until all was clear. So as soon as Gibbo yelled “DOODLEBUG!” 40 plus people all leapt under surrounding chairs and tables whilst everyone else looked completely bamboozled, I was still laughing about it the following morning! As for the boys, well nobody had seen them for hours. As it turns out they’d found a local pub and were all happily drinking the night away. This not being surprising, what hope did they have with their parents?! Rumour has it they also paid a visit to the sand dunes (a rumour confirmed when the following morning various people where seen shaking sand out of items of clothing) and that also various items were misplaced on the sand dunes, including unfortunately last years spoon gun…

At club kick out time most people retired to their chalets with some exceptions heading to the Officer’s Mess in Dibbo’s in the case of the adults or to the Swampy chalet in the case of the boys. I’d suggest it was heavy night having been woken at some point from my slumber to hear Basso minor chundering…that’s a charge isn’t it?

Saturday

Spiffing show boys…

Saturday began with lots of people in dark glasses getting on a coach at 10.00 hours to head for the rugby fields. Of course they weren’t quite bargaining for the magical mystery tour in which they were taken on all around the Camber countryside having motored straight past the rugby field. Upon eventually arriving on the coach the boys were informed they had 4 minutes until kick off so the warm up consisted of jogging over to the pitch. With every other team taking the competition seriously and having been safely tucked up in bed by 22.30hours the previous night hopes in the Brentwood camp were not high.

Brentwood U16s 10 Old Albanians U16s 0

Good lord, where did that jolly good show come from…

Waiting for the referee to blow the whistle for the manoeuvre to begin someone remarked that there was something decidedly odd about the pitch…after much brain power used trying to work out what was missing the nail was hit on the head, no posts! So much for the grind down the field and drop a goal tactic then…

As the whistle blew Aldous minor exclaimed “Chocks away!” which went to show just how seriously the boys intended on taking this manoeuvre. Surprisingly, and despite two injuries in the opening moments of the manoeuvre, Brentwood started very well. They had all the possession and all the territory and Oggle minor, Smith minor, Fry minor and Whalo minor were making large dents in the hun defence. With good possession and good territory Chambers minor put in a nice kick which bounced up nicely, was got to Oggle minor who darted and did enough to pass to Aldous minor who fell over the line. Later on after the umpteenth time of Aldous minor telling everyone he’d dashed twenty yards and around 6 defenders to score Oggle minor confided in me that he should have gone for it himself…Since there were no posts there was no conversion to miss, 5-0 Brentwood and the boys put their wings out and flew back to half way.

In sticking with the “we haven’t got a hope in hell lets go out and try anything” theme McCarthy minor/McMuffin gave an up and under a bash. As you might imagine it was terrible. Fortunately half time came and spectators were allowed to pick their jaws up off the floor following some quite stunning rugby.

The second half left the Brentwood support even more flabbergasted. Some spectacular offloading saw Brentwood playing beautiful rugby and lead Aldous/The Red Baron to suggest that the boys must still be drunk and think the ball is a pint since normally they’d have dropped it. After a great deal of flinging it about Smith minor was on the end of a wonderful try, 10-0 Brentwood, some more flying back to half way and not long after, full time.

Oggle’s team talk was full of praise but the quote which fitted perfectly was that of Gray minor, “it was good but what’s funnier is that they think they were beaten by a load of kids who want to be pilots”.

In the interval between the next manoeuvres the dads set off to find the beer tent. But horror of all horrors, there wasn’t one! There wasn’t a drop of beer to be found in the entire field, what kind of a rugby weekend was this?! Coffee all round then…

Brentwood U16s 10 Dartfordians B 0

More spiffing rugby…

The start to this manoeuvre was probably not as bright as the last one as the boys had actually decided to take it slightly more seriously what with them now having a chance of winning and a few passes started going astray.

Never the less the boys persevered and following a Chambers minor kick and an excellent chase from Smith minor a ferocious maul ensued with the ball being held up over the line. From the resulting scrum Brentwood won a penalty and McCarthy minor stepped up to take the crash ball. And crash he did, there was a collective ooooh on the touchline as he absolutely mullered the hun defender on his way to the try line. 5-0 Brentwood.

Not to be outdone the backs returned to their flowing best in the period before half time with a lovely move from Chambers minor, Fry minor, Mathias minor and Lowry minor almost resulting in another try.

Following the swift half time turn around Brentwood carried on pressing and playing some good rugby, eventually culminating in Adams minor just being held up over the line. After another 5 metre scrum some quick ball was whipped the other way and Lowry minor went over in the opposite corner. 10-0 Brentwood.

10-0 was how Brentwood decided it should stay, I say this since Dobbo minor decided he’d smash his own player, Gray minor, rather than the Dartfordians player…Gray minor was less than impressed.

The next interval saw some snacking, some moaning at MacClean for coming all this way on tour and getting injured and a doodlebug call which resulted in some more odd looks.

Brentwood U16s 0 Braintree U16s 0

Stalemate on the Camber front…

Brentwood’s next manoeuvre was a familiar hun, frequently played back in Essex, Braintree. Despite lots of effort the Braintree defence held firm and it seemed like Brentwood were taking all this far too seriously rather than having fun like in the first manoeuvre. As well as this all I’ve written in my notebook is “hmmm 0-0 HT” so I’m afraid you’re not going to get a massively detailed report for this one…

The second half also ended in a stalemate, possibly as a result of some bizarre reffing decisions which really stopped either team getting into the swing of things. The 0-0 draw left Brentwood second in the group for Sunday’s knock out manoeuvres.

Following Saturday’s manoeuvres I’m lead to believe most of the boys headed off swimming whilst most of the adults tried to grab 40 winks.

20.00 hours at the original meeting point was where this years tour court was to take place, bought forward from its normal Sunday spot due to various families abandoning tour early because of revision classes…revision before rugby, honestly what is the world coming to? This year’s tour judge was Taffy with Swampy as Defence and Basso/The Spiv as Prosecution. Brooksy was up for being late arriving with the tour shirts, he was found guilty and made to wear the specially crafted tour tart dress for the remainder of the night, the 5 sicknotes were up; Ison minor, Morgan minor, Basso minor, MacClean (having apparently caught his injury from standing next to Ison minor for too long) and Taffy minor and were made to go before the firing squad in which they were blindfolded with masking tape and each had an egg smashed on their head. McCarthy was up due to McCarthyette minor breaking the tail of Nipper but not being old enough to take responsibility for her actions and he had to eat a lemon, serial offender Philipsette/Bev was up for not packing correct tour outfits but was let off the hook, the Whalos, Grays and Lowrys were up for having had their own breakaway group and were all given strange head gear and on the call of “It’s fun to stay at the…” they had to jump up and sing “YMCA” complete with actions. There was also Ross of the Chambers contingent who had not only neglected Nipper but had been seen by Dibbo to be running around in a towel that morning, he was found guilty despite Swampy claiming that Dibbo’s slightly blurred eyes from the previous night meant he was an unreliable witness, and placed on bar watch for an hour, meaning he had to wander round the bar in a pair of Baywatch style red skimpies. Unfortunately the security took exception to this so he only managed 5 minutes. Lastly was Mathias, still a wanted man from the previous year. He compounded matters by being a full half hour late for the court session and his punishment carried over from last year with Aldousette minor having a savage time waxing his legs ably assisted by Morganette. He then wore a delightful purple spangly dress (as worn previously by some woman in Corrie) for the remainder of the night as well as some stockings to show off his new silky smooth legs.

Court adjourned it was over to the downstairs bar. Where the bluecoats tried to encourage us to play bingo. No thanks. After the complete bingo flop they decided deal or no deal was a good idea, the response of this was for our party to fly off to the upstairs bar/club. Here we were to be “entertained” by some Kylie Minogue wannabe and some terrible bluecoats with even worse dance moves. Funnily as soon as the bluecoats left the dance floor and they put some normal music on the place absolutely filled up…Rocky was quick to hit the dance floor for the Madness compilation, Swampyette got a bit overexcited at Wham and of course the YMCA came on, much to the amusement of our YMCA clan who all got up and danced. By the end of the night everyone was on the dance floor and a good night was had by all. After kick out time again the adults headed back to the Officer’s Mess and, having been given an official invitation back, myself and Swampyette minor decided we should go and check it out. As ever Dibbo had done a wonderful job with authentic masking tape on the windows to stop them blowing in in the case of a bombing, maps on the walls to plan manoeuvres, 40’s music blaring, Winston Churchill’s speeches to punctuate the music and of course the all important well stocked fridge and optics. Having had a drink and stacked it over the step at least twice we decided to head back to Swampy’s chalet where Dobbo minor and Basso minor were doing their best Gordon Ramsey impressions, cooking pizza for the hungry mob and yelling “get the #### out of my kitchen” whilst in the corner a game of spoons was going on between two of the Chambers contingent much to the amusement of onlookers. The pizza took 20 minutes to be cooked and 2 minutes to be absolutely decimated and with that Swampyette packed everyone off to bed. At some point during this night it was discovered that Taffy minor had managed to projectile vomit off the balcony right in front of the Basso’s front door…pleasant…a thanks goes to Dibbo minor minor, Ogglette and Swampyette for attempting to get rid of it.

Sunday

I must say old bean, it’s a little nippy…

Sunday saw Brentwood actually manage to turn up for manoeuvres with more than 10 minutes to warm up. A warm up that was much needed since the air had a distinctly arctic feel to it. Their semi final manoeuvre was to be again against familiar hun, Chingford.

Brentwood U16s 10 Chingford U16s 15

Beaten by a familiar hun…

One late night too many…Brentwood were very slow to start, with everyone lumbering around somewhat but eventually they got into their rhythm and after turning Chingford ball over Chambers minor put in a nice kick which was followed by an even better chase from Smith minor in which he absolutely smashed the man with the ball. Chingford managed to recycle but were under pressure and their attempted clearance kick was charged down, ricocheting straight to Dobbo minor. He fed it on to Fry minor who drew the defender and passed to Smith minor who again drew the defender and popped it off to Adams minor who raced in to the corner for the try he deserved for all his hard work in previous games. 5-0 Brentwood.

Now what’s the golden rule just after you score a try? It is of course don’t do a completely numpty thing like drop the restart…so of course Brentwood did and straight away Chingford were back on the front foot with a strong maul getting them further down field. A clever kick was dinked over the top of the Brentwood defence and bounced back to a Chingford player who went over for the score. 5 all.

Brentwood could really have done with holding out to half time and regrouping but unfortunately Chingford had gone up a gear following getting level and some good hands made it hard to defend against them and soon they were in for their second score, 10-5 Chingford.

The second half started with Smith minor taking out one of the spectators quite spectacularly, he went absolutely flying. Unfortunately Brentwood couldn’t tackle the Chingford players like that and after dropping off about 12 tackles it was no surprise to see Chingford scoring their third. 15-5 Chingford.

Brentwood rallied after this, nicking the ball in contact and being generally strong in the forwards. It was left to the backs to apply the gloss and after a bit of swishing Chambers minor was over for the try. 15-10 Chingford but unfortunately time was against Brentwood and this is how the score remained. The dreaded 3^rd v 4^th place playoff loomed.

As the day wore on the arctic chill in the air was getting ever chillier, fortunately McCarthy had bought his marquee with him and there was sufficient room for a fair amount of people to huddle in there and keep out of the wind for a while. The boys were unenthusiastic about the upcoming game, especially Aldous minor who, being the girl that he is, asked if he could possibly play in his tracksuit as he was cold…awww diddums…

Brentwood U16s 0 Braintree U16s 5

Scramble old boy…

It was another game against Braintree to finish things off. The boys were all too cold and hungover to be in any mood to play for third so decided they were going to revert back to the tactics of the first manoeuvre and do whatever they wanted. Of course this didn’t factor in having completely the wrong ball, not that Brentwood had noticed but Braintree had their wits about them. Whilst waiting for someone to locate a proper ball Chambers minor and Fry minor were spotted dancing in the middle of the field (yes I saw you!) to keep warm, unfortunately it looked likely that it was Aldousette who had been teaching them her salsa moves…(If you came salsa dancing you would know why this is bad!)

By the time a new ball was located everyone was frozen and tackling was half hearted to say the least, Braintree, who were probably taking the game a tad more seriously, capitalised and scored a deserved try, 5-0.

Brentwood had managed to warm up a bit by now and were complaining less when they won a lineout deep into Braintree territory. The next call that was heard was “SCRAMBLE!!” and all the backs piled in for a 13 man lineout. I have never seen a hun team look so confused. Fortunately the ball was thrown in straight and won cleanly and then all the backs piled into the maul, sources in the forward pack suggest they were “very excited to finally be allowed in with the real men.” Unfortunately with the sheer amount of people in the maul the ball was held up over the try line but it was a jolly good effort!

The second half saw Lowry minor go down badly injured. As we looked along the touchline it was realised that Brentwood were completely out of back replacements. Fortunately super sub Swampy minor was on hand, not only can he cover every position in the pack he can also cover the wing…this only went to provide more entertainment on the touchline with assorted calls of “You see those 5 men, you’ve got to tackle them all!”. Pratley then decided he’d try his hand at kicking and the game turned into absolute mayhem for a while until McCarthy minor and Pratley decided to tighten it up a bit, getting close to the line but unfortunately at some point the ball was dropped.

Brentwood , now thoroughly enjoying themselves, continued to press and with the last move of the game went for the cross field kick. To Swampy minor’s wing. Someone on the pitch, I can’t remember who, tells me that he’d just got up from a ruck and wondered who on earth the ball was aimed for when suddenly out of the corner of his eye he saw this tall, skinny guy who windmills his arms when he runs hairing down the wing and realised it was Swampy minor. Unfortunately Swampy minor was just a yard of pace to slow to catch the kick but he thumped the Braintree defender in the tackle. He tells me however that had anyone had the decency to tell him the move he’d have been there and most definitely scored.

Manoeuvre over, it would have been intelligent to pack up and head back to the warmth of Pontins, but oh no. Since Chingford were in the final against some unpronounceable welsh team it was decided we should stay and support them. A blizzard then duly started as it had been threatening to all day and the Brentwood mob legged it for the grand stand to watch the final.

Nestled in nicely in the grandstand, sheltered from the snow and doing Mexican waves it seemed like maybe it wouldn’t be too bad watching the final. Except of course that the game wasn’t being played on the pitch in front of the grandstand so we all had to up and move out into the blizzard. To say it was cold is an understatement but the combination of the Brentwood boys and the Braintree boys bought together by their dislike of the welsh and the need to support the fellow Essex boys meant the game was quite entertaining. Handy since all that was occurring on the pitch was lineout, not straight, scrum. Alas in the end the welsh triumphed and everyone legged it back to the coaches to get back to the warm.

The blizzard continued for most of the afternoon, much brandy and coffee was consumed by the Basso’s and their neighbours and those who were ditching tour early sloped off into the snow.

The remaining members of the tour party congregated in the pub at some point and decided to head into Rye to get some food at 18.00hours. By this point everyone was cold and starving so it was most welcome. The service wasn’t great but I did manage to nab the last chocolate tart before Morganette minor so it was all worth it in the end!

At 21.00 hours the party reconvened in the club to hear the Macarena for the 400^th time that weekend. And then watch some awful, awful magic show. As a result of this the alcohol was going down rather too easily, even the mummies (or Doris’) decided they were going for it, it has long been accepted that with regard to the daddies if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! At some point that evening there was a boat race between 5 of Brentwood’s elite drinkers and 5 of Braintree’s. I am informed that we may have lost to them in the rugby but we wiped the floor with them in the drinking having had 2 previous nights practice! The boys then returned to the club and persuaded myself and Swampyette minor to get their beers in and some dancing ensued.

Eventually an executive decision was taken to return to the Officer’s Mess so everybody stumbled off into the slush. (Many thanks for Swampy minor and Pratley for aiding me with the stairs…). The drinking carried on as did a game of Silent Night, possibly the stupidest game I’ve ever witnessed. It came about since Swampyette minor had nicked a drinks tray from the bar, apparently this Silent Night game entails singing the well know Christmas Carol, Silent Night, whilst smacking each other in turn on the head with a tray. As far as I can tell there is no way to win this game or any point in it whatsoever but it had everyone in hysterics. The tray was a little dented by the end of it to say the least! Dibbo kept the music going and the drink flowing all night, the main alchies of the team were the last ones standing as ever; Oggle, Swampy, Basso, Dibbo, Taffy, Sprinks/Godfrey, Bassoette, Pratley, Dibbo minor, Hardcore, Basso minor, Taffy minor, Taffy minor minor, myself, Swampyette minor and Swampy minor. McCarthy and The Red Baron had also put in an appearance but escaped at round 02.30 hours. Myself, Swampyette minor and the lads were all squished on the sofa whilst the adults, and I use that term loosely, were doing silly thinks like locking Godfrey in the toilet…When he eventually escaped Godfrey spent I think around 2 hours debating the world with Hardcore in the corner whilst, Taffy minor minor kept a continuous flow of sherry going to Swampy minor and Swampyette minor fell asleep on Pratley. At some point Basso minor and Swampy minor escorted Swampyette minor back to her lodgings whilst I had some strange conversation with Dibbo minor. Eventually they returned, Basso minor informing us he was also going to head off. This was greeted by so many boos that he decided to stay, especially when he realised that Pratley, a tour virgin, was going to beat him in staying up and he couldn’t have that. More odd conversations happened, a bit of a Marseille reminisce with Swampy minor, myself, Hardcore and Basso minor, some ribbing Hardcore for being beaten in the 6 nations fantasy league and world cup fantasy league by a girl (me in case you were wondering!), a bit more sherry for Swampy minor, some more weird conversations and eventually someone noticed Pratley had fallen asleep! Basso minor leapt for joy, got the camera phone out, took some evidence, slapped him, informed him he’d won and with that ran off to bed. Having drunk the Officer’s Mess dry 05.30 hours was when everyone else decided to call it a night. Daylight was just breaking and the seagulls were just waking up, a jolly good effort I’d say! (As a quick aside I’d like to apologise to Dibbo minor for not making him his tea with 12 sugars as promised but I’m afraid I couldn’t get near the kettle!).

Monday

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye…

Monday morning and the vast majority of people wouldn’t have looked out of place in some kind of horror movie…Everyone was running around like nutcases trying to clear out the chalets but of course this isn’t the easiest thing to do on about 3 hours sleep! Just about everyone was fuelled by caffeine but eventually everyone managed to get out of their chalets before the cleaners turned up. Well everyone except the Morgans but that’s come to be expected! People disappeared off in dribs and drabs, some deciding to have a bracing walk on the beach to try and wake up slightly and then retreating into a nearby café upon coming across Camber’s answer to Vicky Pollard…

Lunch in Rye and then time for everyone to go their separate ways. But not before Sprinks realised he hadn’t handed his keys in, there’s always one!

Another great tour was had by all, many thanks to Taffy and Taffyette for organising everything, Dibbo for running the Officer’s Mess, the bar with the longest opening hours known to man, and for everyone who got well into the tour theme and made it so enjoyable!