DYSON'S DIARY 2007
REPLY TO RL VIA THE JESTERS QUESTBOOK
Menorca tour report by the Rawdon Legend (“RL”)
An early
meet in the Stone Trough by RL, Pickering, Senior and Senior meant a quick four
pints
then SJK taxis up to Leeds and Bradford Airport to meet Bell and the rest of the
2007 Barnsley Tour Party (“the Party”) to Menorca (“the Island”).
Check in wasn’t as easy as anticipated, Pickering had packed half of his wardrobe and was 20kgs over the baggage allowance of 18kgs. Living five minutes from an airport does have some advantages so he rushed home to dump half of his load. The rest of the Party proceeded to the bar. To receive hostile warnings from a male and female plastic police person combo after a couple of friendly pints is a typical example of where this country is going. Warnings to 24 people aren’t a good idea, luckily former football league linesman John Morley was on hand to calm the situation.
Finally everybody aboard, a few more
beers and an easy landing ensured we landed on time. I have no idea how we found
our car but the sober Bell of course led the way. Finding the villa however
wasn’t as easy. You would think a former football league linesman who had not
only arranged the villa but also been visiting the Island for fifteen years and
even owned his own villa just around the corner for 10 years would know where to
take the quartet of
Bell, Pickering, Savill (a Barnsley sponsor) and RL. However John Morley dropped
us off pointed east and pissed off for a pint. What seemed like hours in the
pitch black using our mobiles as torches passed until we finally admitted defeat
and phoned joint tour organiser Darren Hayes. Daz phoned John and he was up in a
flash pointing out our villa, some 1000 metres away.
We entered the villa with great anticipation, “what luxury accommodation would we be staying in for the next week” unfortunately the answer was more Lebanon than luxury, unless of course your second name is Bell and you are a selfish twat. He was in the double bedroom faster than he has ever run between the wickets leaving Pickering on the sofa bed and RL and Sav in the two singles in the mosquito infested room.
With Sav complaining that someone had “filled in our pool” we headed down to the Reina Isabella (“the Square”) at about 1.00am.
A very nice early morning drink until about 4.00am ensured new friends were made and setup what was surely going to be a fantastico weeko!
Awoken at
10.30am by Bell is not a nice experience. RL, Pickering and Sav thought they
were
crew on a Japanese whaling boat. Breakfast in the square with all the lads is
always a good craic, today being no exception. With the first instalment of
Super Saturday (England v Sri Lanka) already underway we decided to go to the
cricket straight away.
RL really
loves cricket at Binipparell, the ground is fantastic the cricket and the
drinking plentiful. A team wearing an orange strip won the first game and a team
from the Isle of Man the second game. It was during the second game that my old
friend Dave Greener turned up. Greener a former boxer and keen cricketer himself
was accompanied by his lovely wife Carol and some other friends from the
northeast. RL, Pickering and greener decided to have a lap during the second
game. About halfway round there was a flag hanging up on the wall with a red
background and three
legs.
“Whose flag is that?” asked young Pickering. “That’s easy,” said Greener. “Paul
McCartney and Heather Mills adopted that flag as their own, they must be in the
ground somewhere”. RL knew the punch line but Pickering fell about laughing for
about an hour. Greener reeled off a few more but RL was too drunk to remember
these.
(Belly please could you fill in about Punta Prima.)
Silly drinking games resulting in much drunkenness!! (ed)
It
was back to the square for the third instalment of Super Saturday
(Leeds
Rhinos V St Helens). Excellent game Leeds triumphant 33 points to 6. In the
third instalment (England V France) most people were struggling to see anything
on the big screen. Another great game with England taking the match 12 points to
9.
Usually what goes on on tour stays on tour and this one is no exception. I would just like to mention though later on in the evening one of the father’s of two young chaps also on tour (let’s call him David) seemed to get his manhood out to show everybody, his wife (lets call her Julie) dived like a kingfisher going for it’s snap and headed straight for the tiddler only to be stopped in the nick of time by the young brothers (lets call them Andrew and Mathew) shouting “stop mother, your embarrassing us”. The kingfisher retreated. A little bit later in the evening one of the younger chaps (Andrew) was told by his mother to stop smoking. “You’re a right one to tell me mother, you’ve just been smoking me dad in public”. Quality.
After
the usual bargain breakfast in the square the team of RL, Bell, Pickering and
Savill went straight to Mahon the capital of Menorca. As usual Bell was in the
driving seat, his driving seemed to be more dangerous than usual. It must be
because for the first time we were all fairly sober.
Mahon is a fantastic capital and also has the second deepest natural harbour in the world. RL being an experienced visitor to Mahon directed Bell straight down to the harbour front where we took coffee and had a few laughs.
All of a sudden at 12.30pm
something clicked and like robots we got back into the car drove straight to the
cricket and got changed ready for action. Bell wasn’t selected for this fixture
but was asked to umpire by tour captain Gary Nuttall. Sav’s can’t even play
cricket so he
wasn’t
in the team but was content soaking up the sun and enjoying a C2 shandy with
lime.
Gary lost the toss and we were
asked to bat. If you have logged on for a detailed account of the game, unlucky,
RL will only write the bare minimum, as web space is precious. See below for a
detailed report.
Briefly, we batted first and scored 224-8, Greg Batty smashing a hundred. We then bowled out Menorca for 82, Dave Greener taking 3-13 including his three hundredth wicket in Menorca, amazing.
I think the Menorca selection
committee were a bit confused going into this game. I believe
that
they thought you had to be born in the 1920’s to be selected to play. In actual
fact it is a twenty over per side game. Remember that for next year please.
After the match it was the usual quick shower and jugs of san miguel.
Sunday evening was a quiet
affair, a nice meal and many
drinks, no silliness to report so I will go back a few hours to early Saturday
Morning. First time tourer Andrew Ivill disappeared around 3.00am. Everybody was
concerned, was he in the sea? Had he gone to the wrong villa? no he was round
the corner puking his guts up. Iv’s then started walking up to his villa and
fell asleep on the roundabout. Excellent effort on the first night! (& a
definite future Jester in the making - ed)
Click here for a detailed match report written by the official tour scorer
Shock
horror. A different venue had been planned for breakfast this morning. Belly was
really quite confused. He had already paid his 7 euros for a full english and a
tea, that’s what
happens
if you rise at 7.00am when you are on holiday with heavy drinkers. Senior
tourers’ RL and tour captain Gary Nuttall thought a change is as good as a rest.
Breakfast overlooking the harbour in Mahon is a lot better than being bitten to
insanity by the mosquito’s hiding in the square, ready to pounce.
As soon as the waitress arrived to take the order, Sav’s asked her out on a date quicker than she could get pen to pad. She politely kept smiling but inside I feel she was thinking, “fuck off you ugly Barnsley twat”. Everybody seemed satisfied with the meal and after a short stroll it was time to play cricket.
Castletown
were the opponents in our final group game. Belly and Dave Clayton replaced Dave
Greener and
Ben Senior respectively. Gaz lost the toss and we were asked to bat.
One thing I have learnt about cricket in Menorca is if you are a good batsman
you
get triggered, that’s exactly what happened to Greg Batty who was given out
caught behind off of his pad. Fortunately Jamie hit 141 to get us to a score of
224-4. Andrew Ivill also bored the pants of the spectators with an unbeaten 25
off about 50 balls. Castletown were never gonna get these so when the game was
effectively won Gaz decided to have a laugh and bowl everybody, even Joint Tour
Manager Dave Clayton took a wicket. This was sweet for Dave. The night before he
had been told to be quiet while celebrating his birthday by some Castletown tour
members. In typical Barnsley style Dave responded with “I can say what I fuckin
like, its MY birthday”.
After
celebration ale in the sun we headed back to our villas. It had been decided to
have an evening meal in Es Castell, another very nice small port. While
everybody was changing myself and Belly had a walk round to the S’algar hotel
where we used to stay back in the old days. Everything looked the same, apart
from the price of the drinks, they had rocketed, fortunately for belly I paid so
he was ok, again.
We all had a great meal and a good laugh in the restaurant over looking the port. The owner looked suspiciously queer. He wore a dodgy trilby and kept looking at his young Spanish waiter’s bums. People soon forgot about this though when he brought over the free schnapps for us all to down in one.
With a big game the next day we headed back to base and finished off in the square.
Click here a detailed match report written by the official tour scorer
Today was a very important day as far I was concerned, if we won today’s semi final we could have a nice enjoyable rest on Wednesday and go straight to the final on Thursday. If we lost we were out of the tournament but still had to play for nothing on Wednesday and Thursday (torture). We already knew we would play Castletown CC in the final, the team we defeated easily on Monday. They defeated Rampside CC who we all wanted to play because they had been on our flight to Menorca and had a very strange orange kit.
Our
opponents were Ansley CC who are from somewhere in the midlands. Gaz won the
toss and decided to bat. Unfortunately things didn’t go our way and we were a
few wickets down with not many runs on the board. Ansley were cock a hoop
claiming the key wickets of Batty, Pickering and RL.
There annoying jasper carrot style accents really got up our noses and for the first time all tour we were really pissed off. Ansley’s sledging got a bit worse; some kid with ginger hair told Andrew Clayton too “fuck off” after he was dismissed. Steely, Iv’s and Belly dug in and pushed us up to 117-8, hardly a great score, and we had a tough task ahead of us.
Former football league referee
Trelford Mills and
Pete Hepworth arrived at the ground with about
5 overs left of our innings, they couldn’t fly out with us on Friday due to work
commitments so flew today instead. We decided Heppy should play as he had come
all this way to play cricket. Some people took this as playing a ringer but he
never got in anyway.
Greg opened up with some hostile
pace. RL followed with more hostile accuracy and claimed a wicket. Another good
over from Greg then back to RL, two wickets in the fourth over, nice. At 18-3
and after five overs Gaz brought himself on. Coincidently the little ginger kid
who had plenty to say while he was fielding was now at the crease. A play and a
miss and an attempted stumping by Pickering brought a comment from an unnamed
tour manager, I think it was something along the lines of “you know your in a
game now don’t you, you ginger little twat”. All of a sudden "ging" walked over
to his dad who was the square leg umpire, they walked up to the captain who was
at the non-strikers end, had a word and walked off. The captain said they
weren’t prepared to play in this manner because they were on holiday and
declared. The Ansley umpire waited until he was about fifty metres away before
calling us all “a bunch of wankers” (mature). We were shocked. Wasting no
opportunity I grabbed a quick pint while negotiations to try and get
Ansley back on the field of play took place. Menorca CC chairman Andrew Manners
had been entertaining at his villa when he received a phone call asking if he
could come up and sort the situation out. In typical snobbish fashion and not
knowing the full story he called Barnsley “disgraceful”. This wasn’t fair; this
comment dates back from the Roses CC.
It later turned out that the Ansley CC captain had left the field because he was the only competent batsman left, and he was scared someone would get hurt by our pace bowlers. I think the lesson to be learnt is don’t start what you can’t finish. To really get a feel of how childish Ansley were, read their short tour report on their website. They seem to focus on Barnsley quite a bit. We were not all stars either, Greg plays for Barnsley 1sts, RL and Jamie play for Rawdon 1sts, Heppy has gone money grabbing at Townville and all the other lads play 3rds and 4ths for Barnsley.
We still celebrated with a few beers and had a good laugh at there expense.
In the evening most of the party
headed to the Taj Indian restaurant in Mahon for a sportsman’s dinner. The
dinner was in aid of Menorca captain Jeff Barker’s charity. I think they teach
handicapped children to play sports, including cricket. The food was excellent
and there was still plenty of chat about the afternoon’s match. I also made it
my responsibility to inform Greener and Steve who were the comedians for the
evening.
The entertainment was as good as the food (including lots of ginger jokes) and it was time for a game of heads and tails (Trelford cheated as usual to finish in the top ten). (skipper Gary won it - ed)
The sporting auction was next, a bat signed by Andrew Flintoff didn’t make as much as anticipated, perhaps it might have done if he was a model cricketer and a fine example to junior cricketers like myself.
The next item to go under the
hammer was a 1966 world cup shirt signed by every member of the team apart from
Sir Bobby Moore. The bidding was under way and the price rose to around £650, at
this time my ears pricked up as Trelford who I had the pleasure of sitting next
to all evening commented how cheap the shirt still was and the value will
increase in the future. I thought it would be nice to see it hanging in my new
apartment for a few years until
most of the legends pass on and I can make a
fortune, so I won the bidding at £850.
Some people were surprised but not Belly who thought it was a sound investment (even thought RL was so inebriated he did not remember bidding for it - ed). I have now paid for the shirt in case some of you are wondering.
A good evening topped off by some more alcohol in the square and many laughs and arguments about the shirt and the cricket.
Click here for a detailed match report written by the official tour scorer
At
last, a day without cricket, a day we could relax and
enjoy ourselves. The normal people in our villa awoke about 11; Belly woke about
8 and went for breakfast and a paper.
We had decided to have a barbeque at John Morley’s very luxurious villa. It has a lovely swimming pool, a roof top patio and loads of space for playing cards.
So for three hours we swam, ate,
played cards and drunk lots of magners and san miguel. RL happened to have a few
drinks with Bob Gaffney’s daughter
Nancy and her friend
Pippa.
Most
of the lads thought I was chatting them up and they nicknamed me “the shadow”, I
know different however, they were actually shadowing me!
At about 4 o’clock we went down to the square to watch the Russia versus England game. What a waste of time. Most if us sat outside talking and having a laugh.
With
lots more drinks to polish off we headed back to
John’s, the result was pure carnage for most of us. Too much drinking, swimming,
eating and shadowing ended in Julie and Joan having to put my shoes and socks
for me. We finished off with a coffee at the big villa around 11 and bed soon
after. (those of us sober enough witnessed a spectacular 3 hour electrical storm
hovering around the island - ed )
The usual preparation for a big final.
We awoke around 11 and I have never felt as ill as this before. It must have been something I ate the previous day!
Since
Belly had been up since 7, me Sav’s and Jamie were all fairly hungry. It was
time to go to the cricket anyway so we popped in to the Burger King in Mahon. I
was tempted by the lager they sold but chose a double cheeseburger with fries
instead. I took one bite and threw the rest in the bin. Jamie enjoyed his so the
detour
had served a purpose at least.
Gaz won the toss and decided to
bat. We started off well but lost wickets regularly, which is part of 20/20
cricket. Andrew Clayton, who the evening before had drunkenly fallen down 20
steps, didn’t last very long; he said he had seen three balls coming towards him
instead of one. We made around 155, a score we thought was enough. Castletown
started off well. They were up with the run rate until the tour mum Andrew Ivill
took two great catches on the boundary to dismiss their best batsman. After that
the overs ticked down and we kept it fairly tight. Greg Batty bowled the last
over
and Castletown needed 26 to win. Obviously Greg was taking the piss bowling a no
ball and 4 wides. The last over went for 17 meaning we scraped victory by 9
runs. The victory was greeted by dismay form everybody in the ground who wasn’t
supporting Barnsley. Nobody wanted us to win especially Davis Sheffield.
Pathetic.
Tim had a round of Magners waiting for us all. Unfortunately I still felt like shit and could only manage one mouth full.
The
presentation evening is always a crap meal and
a
boring waste of time. I couldn’t attend due to other commitments (nursing a
hangover in bed - ed). I was informed that Trelford opened up his speech
with
the usual “being a former football league
referee” and said “tremendous” 134
times.
Greg deservedly won the player of the tournament and all the players got crap medals.
It can’t have been a great evening and I must have been missed because everybody was in bed around 1.00am!
For a detailed match report from the final click here
The
last day and a late flight at 11.00pm meant we had a
full day to do what we wanted.
After breakfast it was decided we would go to Cala Dalgana. This is Trelford’s favourite place, but he was feeling a bit worse for wear and didn’t seem to be enjoying his lasagne too much.
After lunch it was crazy golf, everybody had astonishing rounds or so they said and there wasn’t a clear winner so nobody took the prize.
It was far
too cold for swimming in the sea but that didn’t stop the brainless duo of
Pickering
and
Batty diving around while we just watched. 
Time was moving on so we all did a bit of last minute shopping and headed back to wave farewell to the mosquitos in our villa who I bet were sad to see us go.
The flight home was quiet, the landing wasn’t and the pilot had to slam on as we nearly ended up in Rawdon.
On
reflection this was a very good tour and I think everybody enjoyed it, a famous
quote from Trelford “if you don’t enjoy yourself it’s your own fault”.
I hope we are invited back next year because I definitely want to go but I won’t be attending any sportsman’s dinners or buying any expensive shirts.
Rawdon Match Report By The Rawdon Legend (“RL”) 18/09/2007
With six points needed for the title it was important that Stu won the toss. Fortunately, Horsforth Hall Park captain and former Rawdon player Tony Gilks won the toss and asked Rawdon to bowl first, I’m sure Stu would have bowled first but you can never tell, a heavy day’s racing has affected him before. There are too many witnesses to deny this Stu!
The Rawdon members couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing in the opening overs from the RL. The usual dismissal of two out of the top three didn’t happen and some punishment was dealt. Of course the punishment dealt wasn’t the majestic shots that can only be attributed to a Rawdon batsman, but a display of forward defences racing down to fine leg, third man and wherever else the ball could squeeze too, on the fastest outfield in the league.
Turning down straight deliveries that are knocking all three stumps out of the ground, seems to be catching on in the league, the usual “not out” call from the umpires was beginning to sound like a broken record by the time RL was replaced by Rocky who hinted to this writer that next season could be his benefit year. Selling products with Big Licks on them is just asking for trouble.
All of a sudden a large brown envelope appeared from the chairman’s pocket and Mark (“It’s the way I play”) Mceneaney started bowling ten mph quicker, swinging and seaming the ball with unusual precision. What followed was unbelievable Den taking four and Macca taking six dismissing Hall Park for eighty two.
It is worth mentioning that Macca needed six wickets before the start of play to achieve fourty and qualify for the averages. Congratulations to Macca, I believe his fourty wickets came at £100 a piece.
The usual quality Rawdon teas were taken a little earlier than usual. Many thanks to Kath and her volunteers for producing the best teas in the league week in and week out.
After watching Honolulu in the St Leger, who couldn’t get beat, get beat it was back to the cricket.
Simon Wilson obviously wanted to either put another bet on or ring someone’s wife as he was bowled out second ball of the innings by a Chris Boden look alike.
After this minor hiccup, Stu and Jamie Pickering peeled off the runs in 17 overs. Stu needing a six for his fifty but only one to win the game duly obliged and put the ball over the scoreboard. The young Hall Park left arm spin bowler bared a similar resemblance to Scottie but was more economical, going for just fourteen an over.
Then followed bottles of complimentary Becks, Coors and Champagne. Most of the alcohol ending up in the players’ hair and clothes instead of down their neck’s, or even later, against the Nat-West bank outside wall in Horsforth.
It was then into the clubhouse to celebrate with fellow members and enjoy the music provided by Alan Whincups band Phoenix. RL enjoys a chat with other RL’s, on this occasion it happened to be R P Brown, by his own words a top quality swing and seam bowler and a ten wicket hero in his own way. An entertaining ten minutes with Ronnie even provided RL with some information he didn’t already know. Ronnie revealed that Graham Wright had been probably the best Captain he has ever seen, a master tactician and great all round cricketer as well. However on investigation the day after, RL quizzed another former teammate of Grahams, during the Jesters game. I was told Ronnie was incorrect and Graham was a shite captain and the worst he had ever seen. How one person can have such a different view to another is baffling, I know, lets ask Sydney Barnes what he thinks.
The free bar continued until most of us couldn’t see, Lawrence did say we could have had another drink each but somebody earlier in the season didn’t buy their raffle tickets.
On reflection this has been a good season for the first team and for the promising juniors that have played for the second team, lets hope they are like young Matty and can’t be arsed going to university, or we will probably never see them again apart from wearing fancy dress and watching the first team on a Saturday.
Well done to all the players who have stuck with it this season especially when they have been out of form. It’s always worth battling it out at a proper club playing in a proper league instead of joining a farm team and playing in the black pad league.
One final thought on the Horsforth relegation. I believe they would have been relegated the week before if the umpiring in the Horsforth versus Rawdon game were to a reasonable standard. I’m sure the main culprit was Belly who instead of concentrating in the game was concentrating on the MILF’s on the boundary.
I’m sure a warm welcome next season from Woodhouse will await the former Horsforth captain who likes to slip around on grass.
