"Go West young man!"

There was to be no returning to the Lansdowne, in fact any return to Hastings at all. This was to the pleasure of virtually all. This year's tour was to be in South Devon and to the regency resort of Sidmouth. Once the favoured haunt of the Victorians, this sleepy and quaint seaside town nestles in the rolling Devon hills between Exeter and Lyme Regis. It was once a popular seaside town but over the years people started to holiday in the larger UK seaside resorts or go abroad. Down on visitor numbers the train service was finally withdrawn in 1965 and since then Sidmouth has become a small town locked in a time warp. But then in June of 2003 Kings came to town!!!

We met, as instructed by "Herr Direktor" at Fleet services around 09:30. Which was fine if you happened to live in Bracknell (like "Herr Direktor") but if you were one of the ones who lived that little further away then it meant getting up at the crack of dawn to beat the rush hour traffic to get there in time. Slowly, but surely, men, clad in Kings blue rugby shirts started to disembark from vehicles in need of refreshment and latrines. Not amongst their number was the one called "Bish" who having been severely delayed was getting to Basingstoke by rail to await a lift. Sure that his men had all arrived and were ready for the off "Herr Direktor" gave his instructions for the next stage of the journey. Before the men departed one amongst them, 'Turk' by name, dished out t-shirts, emblazoned upon which were highest scores and names by which we were to be referred to for the duration, unless you wanted to suffer financial penalty. However, amongst their midst was an outsider, a stranger, he was to be know as. ……Harry Potter!

The convoy set off, M3, A303 was to be the route. Amongst the convoy were strangely loaded vehicles crammed with strange beings en route to Glastonbury, but for the men of Kings their destiny lay elsewhere. Further south and west we pushed, and as we did so the skies grew darker and more threatening. By the time we had got close to the airbase at Yeovilton the first rain was starting to fall. As we climbed into the Blackdown Hills it was starting to hammer down. The chances of play were looking slim. Then 'Pipey' rang and said it had stopped at the ground, but if it rained anymore it would be off….but they had a plastic track!! 'Pipey' suggested everybody hit Woolies when we got there and bought a pair of 'plimies'. Honiton came and went and it was still raining. But then as we started to descend the other side of the hills toward the coast, it started to clear up, the sun was breaking through…there was hope yet that we might be ok! Arrival in Sidmouth was via the small village of Sidbury, where Sunday's game was to be played…we glimpsed the top of the sightscreen…hmmmm we thought looks good (pah! Good it would not even come close to the word - ploughed field was a better description!) Anyway we arrived in the outs skirts of Sidmouth, and there ahead of us was "Herr Direktor".

We followed him along the seafront where we then spotted a blue shirted traffic warden (in fact it was Smut..) directing us into the car park of the hotel. Car park was somewhat small and temporary residence had to be taken up round the corner. First impressions were good, the hotel looked good (better than the Lansdowne but then again a WWII bomb site looked better than the Lansdowne) the resort looked ok, we were right on the sea front and there was a friendly man behind the bar ready to serve cooling amber liquid. Oh yeah and the sun was shinning brightly! There was time for the men to get their gear into the hotel (Pipey was seen taking in 3 nicely pressed shirts all on hangers, whilst Storming took in all sorts of strange Hawaiian and camouflaged materials). Beer was being sipped and general tomfoolery going on when a huge great sea gull dropped it guts all over Wrighty! They say it's lucky - but poor guy was run out first ball later that afternoon). Anyway come the appointed time we blocked up the road with assorted taxi vehicles, which were to transport us to Woodbury for the game.

Our base for tour - The Marlborough Hotel, slightly more class than the Lansdowne

A short journey through the rolling Devon Hills brought us to the small village of Woodbury (Match Report) and up a side street to arrive at this ground that sat on side of a small hill but in a hollow on two sides which sloped in quite steeply. It had a great view and all in all it looked a good place. The men soon decided there was need to vent the pent up energies of the journey by launching into their best deliveries in the nets. Some of their young lads came over and gave it a shot as well but lets be truthful here: "Don't mess with the best!!" All this practice was fine until Storming put his shoulder out. There was talk of doing a lethal weapon on it (smashing it against a post) but the Storm did not seem too keen on this idea. Anyway he declared himself unfit to bowl, but fit to bat and most definitely fit to pour copious amounts of lager down his neck. There was much consternation as some old geyser waddled out to the plastic strip with a set of spring loaders. Anyway a quick comment along the lines of "if we you think we're playing on the f**king plastic we back off to the pub - ) This seemed to intimidate him enough to tell their Skipper that the game had to go ahead on the grass, and so it did (and lets be truthful here…it was totally playable - slow and low maybe but playable). The game (as reported elsewhere) turned out to be a cakewalk and we soon had our first win in the bag. But we did have some madness that saw five wickets go down for four runs…fab stuff, at least we had our first tour bhooners.

Game won, we got directions to the pub - the oppo leapt in their cars and off they shot. Whilst we, with kit slung over our shoulders, did a guided tour of Woodbury to get to the pub - a thirst was certainly on by the time we got there. The 'battle cruiser' looked good, there were loads of respectable people having some nosh, but they soon ate up once they saw us lot arrive. The landlord was good guy and delivered a huge bowl of chilli and also some bangers and chips. We were then joined by 'Sal' who had hot footed from the Smoke by train and cab - it was good to see him again, and we immediately gave him the late hat! There were some deep discussions with Harry Potter and explaining to him that he may have come all that way, but he should not hold his breath at getting a game! The rest of the evening saw us getting to grips with ferret racing! This was held in a back room of the pub, which to be honest was starting to stink from the smell of these skinny rodents!

Take a few bricks, some old drain pipes and some furry animals and you've got Ferret racing

Not sure which one I lost my money on

Anyway a few more beers (jugs of!) and we became immune to the smell. Anyway it was a great laugh as the men gambled their hard earned dough on which of the rodents would appear form a drain pipe first. It appeared the 'Ming' was doing quite well and seemed to have the knack for picking a winner - unfortunately for me buying a half share in one of these creatures with Pipey turned out to be nothing but a financial disaster. It had to be said though it was a good night and I think we entertained the locals by attendance at such an event (think the attendance went up by 300% thanks to us). Ming spent a period of time explaining to Harry that he should go home Saturday and then drive back to pick us up on Sunday. Ming was sure he had struck a deal! Come closing time it was bundle time as we fought over who was gonna go in the cabs first. I travelled back to Sidmouth with 'Ming' 'Turk' and 'Pipey', we were suitably entertained by 'Ming' who in his slightly worse for wear state established that our women cab driver had in fact been a teacher before taking up cabbing. Several other questions followed but the best of which was….."so are you a lesbian then???"

It was the sort of question only the 'Ming' could have asked. Thankfully we were soon at the hotel and we unloaded and gathered with the others in readiness to hit THE club. I say 'the' because it was the one and only club in Sidmouth. (d'ya know I can't remember the name of it) Some wanted to get changed into their 'glad rags' but most of us hit the joint as we were, jeans and t-shirts. In the venue we found the place split into two areas, a dance floor and bar and then round the back a bar and food outlet. It was soon decided that we should all move round to the back bit which we did but after a while we pretty much spilt in two groups those drinking and eating….and those drinking and mincing. Our t-shirts caused some interest and we were forced to try and explain our nicknames, which in some cases was not easy. I think it was around 2:00am when we left the joint and then we went to 'Bish's room, to play some poker dice. This was going nicely until the rest of team also arrived in the same room and we ended up with total chaos on the bed, so much so that the neighbouring room were banging on the door telling us to be quiet! Excellent - we had made our mark! More was to follow though as Smut could not enter his room as Storming, who had retired earlier had put the latch down and despite all efforts with the key, with our fists, our feet there was no way of entering the room or raising the slumbering Storm. Even the manager (who we had woken with our hammering) could not open the door. There was nothing for it; Smut had to crash on our floor!

Breakfast was served and all but Storming made it! He was still slumbering and it was not until near ten that Smut managed to get him to open his door with which he was greeted with a cheery "morning chaps!". Even Harry made it, he was in deep discussion with some old slap and was talking about going walking with her - the rest of the men he blanked….and he left and we never saw him again (and he never came back on Sunday) Once again the sun was shinning and things looked good for a perfect day. The men split into small groups to go explore, and hope we could find some crazy golf somewhere. We had no joy despite walking all the way to Shite Rocks….I mean Chite Rocks. On the way back some time was killed on the beach where Ming was shat upon by a gull (- later he got a bhooner, so don't believe this good luck crap - ask Wrighty and Ming it don't work!!) We got back to the hotel and it was clear that we were struggling to find something to do, so we got the cards out. It would have been a good session of poker, but it soon became clear that Sven and Garsh were cheating BIG time, and it later also emerged that Bish and Sal were also cheating, all I can say it was a good job Turk did not know there might have been some violence!

Lets just say the game was not played on a level playing field

Whilst we were playing our last team member finally turned up, Laces had arrived via train and taxi from Reading making the tour party complete. We set off for the ground to find ourselves playing at a picturesque ground. The game itself was quite an event - we got slapped around the park for the first 45 minutes but fought back well and then batted with guts and determination. (see match report). The day was hot and most of the men sought out shade whilst we batted and try to sleep off the ills of the night before. The game drawn we got back to the hotel and then got ourselves down to Sidmouth CC clubhouse. There we were provided with great food and by the time the beer was slipping down we started to take part in the Karaoke. This included a great version on "Hey Jude" which became "Hey Julc". But the biggest and best was a whole team rendition of YMCA - in total homage to Sven. The men did well in the raffle clearing up 3 of the top 4 prizes. After a while it became clear that Sal had slipped away and so had a certain young lady!! As we walked back to the hotel Sal was spotted just outside the hotel and the thought of 13 lewd and drunken cricketers descending at a speed was enough for the girlie….she was off like a shot and Sal never saw her again. Most queued for the club, but as it appeared every person from a 30-mile radius had done the same the queue was lengthy, so some got in, some gave up. A stroll along the beach and a game of cards was the order of the day if you didn't make it in. If you did the dance floor awaited where Storming proved that his shoulder injury was not gonna hold him back!

"…….Hey Julc, take a bad ball and make it better…."

"…..down at the Y.M.C.A"

By the next morning we had tracked down a golf centre, so we loaded the kit and went to hit the pitch and putt course. After a warm up on the driving range, which threatened the guys in the adjacent booths rather than the flags 150 yards away we split into groups. Do you know I can't remember who won but certainly half way round it seemed more fun to try driving the ball at opposing groups rather than at the hole

Sven decided using a putter all the way round was the safest option

Garsh lines up a putt, whilst the focus seems to be on the other group

After the golf we sent off for Sidbury (Match Report), we were there early enough to hit the pub before the game. The pub had about four people in it, so you would have thought the landlord would have been glad of our business, but No! He was the most miserable stuck up git you'd ever come across and the thought of 12 pints plus lunches were all too much for him. The fact that hardly anything from his menu was still on was another issue, but we all managed to get fed and watered in the end. The game itself saw us victorious again and we got the better of Dr Slot and his team. The good Doctor was good enough to look at Garsh's injured leg, which led to Ming asking the Doc if he was a "Gyno". We hit the pub again after the game where more beers were downed before it was decided that a curry should be the order of the day.

However the only curry house could not seat us till nearly 10:30 by which time Bish and myself had to leave. So we made our way to another pub where dart cricket was the order of the day. What happened that evening is all hear say to me, but I understand there may have been a food fight in the curry house and that certainly Pipey locked Ming out of his room which meant he had to sleep on the floor! Pipey crashed with Turk and Garsh.

The next morning it was time to pack and head back to the 'Smoke' but it was a great tour in which we made all the great impressions both on and off the pitch, I certainly think we'll be coming back, it was 100% better than Hastings!

The damaged door - Before or After Kings arrival that's the question

3-in-bed: Garsh, Pipey and Turk