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The Old Trott’s SLHCC Tour Diary
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Day 1
The waiting was finally over! My bags (and my Dad’s Bags) were all packed and we set off to meet our fellow tour goers at the Rec for a 12 meet. Newcomers to the club Chay, his girlfriend Clair and Lewis were the first ones at the ground and soon after, everyone else was there ready to go. Well everyone that is apart from the notoriously late Super Dave and his unfortunate passenger Lovejoy. Once everyone had received the most talked about document in recent tour history, the Tour Itinerary, and we had loaded Martin’s Boogie bus, we were ready to go. Super Dave managed to catch up with our mini convey on the Queen Elizabeth bridge and we made our way to Bognor Beach front where we were to reconvene.
We all met in a pub called The Waverly for a quick pint and a bite to eat. For me, this is where my Tour started to sour slightly as I started suffering from a bad bout of hay fever that made me look as if I was crying like a big girl. I managed to wipe away the tears for long enough to make it to the Church Farm resort where we picked up the keys and all got briefly acquainted with our new homes for the week.
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( Chay and Lee in The Lion )
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Once everyone had unpacked, we all set off for Pub Cricket. Our first stop was a pub called The Lamb where the solitary bar girl looked slightly scared when 22 people stormed the little pub requesting pints galore. Lovejoy was the designated scorer and the runs and pints started flowing. After a few rounds in The Lamb, we then all moved onto The Lion which was a lot larger, less busy, had a pool table, a quiz machine, a dart board AND sold Snakebites (Beer, Cider and Blackcurrant!!). Because of this, we spent most of the evening in here. From the outset, there were 4 pacesetters for the converted Pub Cricket title. Christo and Martin decided to hit 6’s from the start (Pints of Guinness), Chay was motoring through plenty of beer and picked up a few extra’s with his SLHCC hat and top and myself!!! I decide to pick up all extras available by wearing my hat, top and jumper and after a few Doom Bar’s, I moved onto 6 runs worth of Snakebites.
With the night drawing to a close, we all moved to the next pub called The Bear where we all had a last few drinks.
We all staggered our way back to our caravans and it wasn’t until Friday that the result was known (Scorecards were left somewhere in Lovejoy’s caravan) but the result was:-
4th – Chay ‘Mega Mac’ Hedges
Joint 2nd – Christo ‘Prawn’ Otto & Martin ‘Kennedy’ Leslie
1st – Kevin ‘Trott’ Smith Jnr!!!
My Prize for winning was a sleepless night due to weeping eyes and a fold out bed that refolded itself with any slight movement but I’m not moaning!!
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Day 2
The first morning on tour for me was a bit of blur! Not because I was hung over but because I couldn’t really see!! Tuesday was the day we were due to play our first tour match against East Preston, so I passed the reigns over to Martin and stayed in the dark of my caravan as the rest of the tour party made their way to East Preston. The match was due to start at 2 so when I got a call from Martin at 1:40, I was thinking something’s not right. Martin explained that the oppo thought that the game was on the Wednesday (even though the email chain, our website and theirs said Tuesday!!). Everyone therefore had a free day on the Tuesday so some went for a round of Golf and some went and visited Worthing. When everyone returned, Martin rounded up most of the troops and took them off for a night out at Thursdays on a Tuesday!!! Apart from the attack of the she-beast on Martin, everyone who went seemed to have a good night, dancing away and getting a bit tipsy with Luke ‘Casanova’ Abbey bagging himself a bit of a hottie!!!
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( Gary, Christo and Martin @ Thursdays )
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( SLHCC Team v East Preston )
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Day 3
Wednesday started in brilliant sunshine and my eye had improved enough that I could venture outside again. Myself, Neil and my dad decided for a short trip to Pagham Beach café for an tasty fry up. We then made our way back to the campsite where we met up with all the others and made our second attempt at playing East Preston.
The game was an entertaining affair with a 25 ball 50 from Gary ‘Amla’ Sanderson and a first century for Stanford from captain for the day Martin Leslie. In the chase, East Preston’s Sunderland hit an excellent ton but 3 wickets from ‘Mick’ Lewis Robinson helped SLHCC to a 17 run win. After a brief talk of going out for a Curry (instigated from Amla), we all ended up going back to our caravans for a take away curry and a few Stella’s!!
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Day 4
The final full day on tour started in similar brilliant sunshine. Chay had heard about our trip to Pagham café so along with Sean, Jodie, Dad, and Neil, we all went for a second fry up in 2 days. Again, it was a top breakfast and once Mega Mac had finished tucking into half a pig, we had a little stroll to the beach for some stone skimming!!
We then went back to our caravan, met with the others and made our way to Singleton. Before the match, we popped into a really nice little pub with an excellent pub garden for a pre match pint!!! The game with Singleton got under way at 2pm with all bowlers being allowed 4 overs each. Special mention again needs to go to ‘Mick’ Lewis Robinson whose 4 overs went for an impressive 61 with Singleton scoring 247. In response, the Stanford batsmen were all on a mission to beat Gary’s record of 50 in 25 balls, wickets fell regularly. Luke got 50 in 26 balls but there was nobody else up to the Gary challenge and Singleton won the game by 47 runs.
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( SLHCC Team v Singleton )
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( Katie, Martin, Gary, Lewis, Christo, Beau and Me @ Visions )
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To end the tour, we decided to have a last night out at Vision night club in Bognor where plenty of shots, beer and table tennis dancing occurred. Knowing he had to compete with Luke in the ladies front, The Prawn went on a one man mission to nab what he could!! Unfortunately, the beer goggles had definitely set in and luckily for Christo, he isn’t able to remember the state of the young lady he was trying to eat. The fact that before we had got in the club, he said that cat food was ‘just a bit of meat in gravy’ should give a good indication of how sozzled the young South African was!!! A great night was had by all and it was a good way to end the tour.
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Day 5
Tour had come and gone in a blink and it was time to pack the bags again and head of home.
A big Thank You to everyone who came on Tour this year and hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves as much as I did
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