Saturday 26th October 2002

Kay: "7.15am: an unexpectedly early and very rude awakening when the bottom of the bunk that Dave and I were sleeping in collapsed - what a nice start to the day!!!
They don't make 'em like they used to . . .

By 8.30am we were all down in the hostel canteen for breakfast, toast and tea. From previous years' experience this was known to be pretty basic, so the the plan was to grab whatever we could from there for free and then make it down the road to T.J.'s greasy spoon. However, as usual Darren, Dave, Martin, Paul, Eryl, Bert and Alastair were talking technical tactics so we didn't get out of the hostel 'til 10.00am.

In the meantime Eryl and I decided to take showers after breakfast to try to wake ourselves up. We certainly got woken up, but not in the way we had expected: we got into our respective shower cubicles, pressed the button for the water to come out and were rewarded with electric shocks! AND, to make matters worse, the water was FREEZING COLD!

The plan for the day was to take one of the non-stop tour buses, jump off when we saw something that took our fancy and then find a place to eat once we had had our fill of the culture.

		However, after sitting on the bus for three-quarters of the round-Dublin loop we hit a huge traffic jam that just seemed to be going nowhere, so we decided that this was as good a place as any to get off, clambered off the bus and headed off on foot back to O'Connell Street. However, at this point we noticed the payback for sitting for an hour atop an open-top bus: no one could feel their hands or feet!
		Paul braves the cold with a smile . . .

A sign marked "Food Hall" was tooo much to resist, so we dived in there and sat ourselves in an Italian Café/Restaurant and ordered various combinations of Pizza and Lasagne, all of which were very filling. However, on the other side of the food hall we could see a sign for a crépe place, which Darren and Bert decided was just too much of a temptation, so they dashed out and five minutes later came back with chocolate and banana crépe which I must add looked very appetizing. Martin had the best idea, sending out an order for a crépe with Darren and Bert while he sat in the warm in the Italian Café, stuffing his face with lasagne!

Steph and Ed then joined us, followed shortly by Tracy and Toby. Thank God for mobile phones!

We all headed back to the hostel where the gang put the finishing touches to the game plan ("Get in the pool and swim"), the tour T-shirts were handed out and bats - mostly Martin's bats - were hurriedly painted. The "before" versions would most definitely not have passed a referee's inspection!

Once everyone was ready to go we headed out of the hostel, walked down to O'Connell Street and commandeered a fleet of taxis to take us to the pool. Despite the fact that we all seemed to take different routes we all seemed to arrive at about the same time."

Martin: "First job after introductions and the inevitable "I didn't know you were coming!" was the team photo, although Eryl proved to be as good as evading capture for the team photo as he is when in possession of the puck! Hence, no Eryl above...

It was then brought to our attention by Hugh, the tournament organiser, that one of the other teams (Rochdale) would not be taking part as the gale-force winds had grounded all the ferries, and despite Hugh's insistance to Rochdale that they should not, must not, rely on the ferries to get over to Dublin, they had all booked ferry tickets and were now sitting at home in Rochdale writing letters to the ferry company to claim their refunds.

This was now the fourth Dublin international tournament, and apparently Rochdale had only made it to the very first one, ever since then falling foul of bad weather keeping the ferries in port, so Hugh's stance to them was pretty understandable. However, this still didn't alter the fact that we were now down to four teams, which meant that we would all have to play consecutive games in an 11'4" pool . A cunning plan was immediately hatched, and it was decided that a scratch team - a "new Rochdale" - would be made up from the "extra" players of each of the other teams. Dublin, with twelve players, agreed to contribute three; Chesham, with eleven players, was asked to contribute three, and Newcastle, with nine, was asked to contribute one, making a scratch team of seven.

Each team was asked to put its players' names into a hat and the allotted number of players were pulled out from each team. We all simultaneously had the same image of losing both Ed and Eryl, so when the first of our names out of the hat was that of Ed, it looked like our fear was going to come true." Kay: "The second name out was that of Dave (thanks Darren!), and this was followed shortly by Toby. Once the draw was completed it quickly became apparent that Lady Luck had placed all of her money on the scratch team, which was made up of the two Chesham centre-backs (Ed and Dave), the entire Dublin forward line and Newcastle's Leeds-based GB-international right-back Richard Bewell, who had been a member of the GB Men's Masters team that had won a bronze medal at the 2002 World Championships. With only a cursory glance at the scratch team, everyone was saying that it had better odds than any other team there.

Ed fraternises with the opposition

We had a quick meeting, where we decided who would be placed where, as we had lost both of our centre-backs, as well as one of our forwards (Toby), so some emergency repair work would need to be done before we hit the water in earnest.

By 2.00pm the first two teams were ready to play and we were understandably all a bit tense.

The first game went OK: Dublin lost to???? 3-1 and the next game was Chesham and Dublin again where we thrashed their pants off.

Martin strikes home

Eryl in control against "Watney", with Darren in support

The scratch team was playing very well and the other teams were saying that they could well win this as they had all the best players from each team. Darren was on form again, he was well motivated and was keeping the team in high spirits, even when they drew against the scratch team.

//SCRATCH TEAM TOURNAMENT//

There were a few casualties: Darren got hit in the face and came up from the bottom of the pool with blood pouring from his mouth, but it turned out to be a little scratch and Martin got cramp on the last game (Martin: "I was actually reffing, not playing!") and needed to be pulled out of the pool by Dave and Darren, who also had to pull his legs backwards and forwards to stretch the muscles so that he could feel movement in them! That was funny to watch.

After the match everyone went across to the Teachers club in Parnell Square for a finger buffet and lots and LOTS of Guinness. Oh, yes, and also the presentations . . .

We all made our way to the bar and once we had got our drinks we all headed across to the food table where everyone filled their faces until they could eat no more.

Trophies were given out, pictures was taken and speeches was said of the winning team (Chesham) and in close second was the scratch team who only lost Chesham by one point otherwise they would have won the tournament."

Martin: "Some wag did make the observation that Rochdale would probably never turn up again as they seemed to get much better results by not being there than they did when they actually turned up!"

Kay: "After the night came to a close at the Teachers' Club a few partygoers went to the hostel to get changed into their party clothes and met up with the stragglers in the night club, where Eryl was on top form, dancing and trying to chat up all the women, whether they were single or not! He came quite close at one point, gyrating his hips at some woman who just wanted the free drink.

We all partied the night away and after nearly drinking the bar short Eryl was really past it and was caught saying to Martin "Which one shall I have? They both look lovely!", pointing to these really big ladies, one sporting a RED PVC cat suit!

At about 3.00am the club was closing and we HAD to leave. We walked out onto the streets of Dublin, with a very drunk Martin and Eryl in tow. As we got around the corner we turned to Martin and Eryl to see if they were hungry and wanted something to eat on the way back to the hostel. But they were nowhere to be seen . . ."

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