Chipstead RFC Colts Bruges Tour 25th- 28th October 2014
A tour party of ten dads and twenty 16-18 year olds, making up the newly formed Colts side, gathered at the Meads car park, bright, breezy and apprehensive of the days ahead.
All were suitably attired in their splendid tour polo shirts and hoodies, all, that is, except for Andy Brown who claimed he did not know he had a polo shirt, frantic phone calls to his father-in-law to locate and deliver said shirt before departure were fruitless. Andy accepted this; the first major breach of the Tour Rules was going to be costly.
All aboard the bus to the Chanel Tunnel with Palm, our Sikh driver wondering what he’d let himself in for. Tour rules and Players Discipline rules were recited by Jay. In particular the rule “no drinking until we are on French soil” left some very forlorn faces and mutterings from the back of the bus of “He can’t be serious” “I think he is serious” “He’s got to be kidding”. The sound of the opening of Carlsberg cans by the time we reached the M20 showed a disregard of the rule and the noise level started to go up the scale. This is when Jay discovered he’d left the tour songs on a disc in his computer, however Tour Captain Joe stepped with his own saved to disc... Mr Brightside was going to Bruges again! Through the tunnel a 90 minutes to Bruges saw the tour party arrive mid-afternoon. Palm gave us his own moment when ignoring all signage he battled the bus through the almost pedestrianized streets and Saturday shopping crowds of the centre of Bruges, safely delivered us all at the renown, Charlie Rockets, base camp for the next few days.
Charlie Rockets, well, first impressions good, lively bar area; excellent games/pool/snooker room. Accommodation; a good job there were no Trip Advisor reports available. Four men in two bunk beds in a room about eight square was somewhat overcrowded, bordering on logistically impossible. Anyway, no problem, rooms were over booked and three tourists were despatched to a nearby hotel for the night with overcrowding issues to be sorted at a later date. Andy had to give up his promised single room.
Evening meal and beer provided in Charlie Rockets and the tour began in earnest.
Players were advised to obviously take it easy in view of Saturday’s game reassured us that they would. The tour dads settled in to the bar and Par-100 was launched, which became the drinking game of the tour. Like all good drinking games the more you loose, the more you consume and the worse you get. Notably, Mike Gillin did not grasp the game particularly well and the initial mental block did not improve as the evening went on. Cliff the Kitty Master was magnanimous in organising glass replenishment. Curfew time came and went though some boys had reported back early. Sam did a sterling job of reporting the whereabouts of the boys who were still out and all eventually all returned without reportable incident.

Day 2: Sunday morning was understandably slow, the extra hour in bed not having much impact. Tourists arrived for breakfast in dribs and drabs, many very much the worse for wear and several being cautioned to keep their eyes closed before they bled to death. Alan and Jay amused themselves in the hotel down the Hoogstraat, un-packing Nigel’s neatly packed bag, left in the hotel room, due to the uncertain room arrangement, tidily placing his clothes and fancy dress in the wardrobes and drawers of the room for him to find on collection of his bag.
Note: Do Not Leave Your Bags Un-attended in the presence of those two!
11 o’clock meet time for the bus came, and the squad quietly boarded and started preparing themselves for the game. A two hour drive to Bredase Rugby Club in Holland, started and all were subdued, but following a stop for energy drinks etc. normal tour behaviour was resuming.
Club located and players off to the changing room, the adults studied the opposition arriving and remarks went along the lines of “He can’t be under 18” “Look at the size of him” “We’re going to struggle in the line out today”.
Bredase RC 7 - Chipstead RFC Colts 51
Yes, there were a lot of very big lads in the opposition but Chipstead were fired up and ready to take them on. Captain Tom H led the team out for the encounter.
Strong attacking from the forwards from the start saw Tom B open the scoring after 2 minutes. Joe P decided, being on tour, he’d go for a drop kick conversion which was nicely sliced wide.
Bredase came back strongly and got Chipstead on the back foot and showed their power with a well worked try under the posts. Conversion put the home team 7-5 up. Wake-up call taken and Chipstead started to put the pressure on. The second try came from Sam who took the ball from the back of a ruck 3 metres out and powered over the line for 5 points. Joe P converted. Chipstead then started playing good running rugby and ball out to the wing and Tom G was nearly in when the desperate tackles resulted in Tom’s elbow meeting the tacklers forehead with a mallet-to-coconut sort of sound which split the forehead and resulted in a hospital visit and 7 stitches. Happy to say the player was back in the bar, unperturbed, to show his wound.
Joe P. got on the try list next with a strong run through the centre leaving the defence in tatters. Conversion missed. Bredase started to realise they were against it and panicking in defence cost them when a fluffed penalty clearance in their 22 went straight to Reece who was unstoppable to the line. With Joe’s conversion the tourists went into half-time 7-24 up. With Billy resting on the bench first half, he came on second half and the front row new they had a job on. He took the next score 10 minutes into the half.10 minutes of end-to-end rugby followed, a break by Joe P from the half way line opened the defence and Joe L took the ball in space for a 30m dash to the line and score under the post. With the Bredase forwards struggling to contain the power, scrums went un-contested. Defence on the back foot gave away numerous penalties and kicks to the corner gave a line-out and well worked maul with winger Matt taking the ball over, injuring his shoulder as the defence tried to bundle him out.
With the score line at 7-41 Bredase were beaten but stuck the game out with spirit. Two more tries from Joe P and Billy sealed the match at 7-51.
A great display from the Colts and an international well won. On talking to one of the coaches after the game he asked, “How many games are you playing in Holland. Holland?” Some thought we were still in Belgium was an embarrassed response from some, well OK one, of the tourists. Well its all similar landscape and no-one had seen any bulb fields.

Post-match festivities commenced. The travel theme fancy dress was well adhered to, it’s worrying that majority of the squad desired to, voluntarily, dress in women’s clothes. Gerard in a yellow chiffon crop-top and micro skirt, Tom G looking like a Moto GP pit lane babe, and a team of Virgin dollies that Branson would have been proud of. Regrettably one tourist was in non-compliance, but perfectly understandable in that Nigel had the mental pressure of being linesman at such big internationals and he had spent half the morning locating items of the fancy dress from around the hotel room, thus, said items were not loaded onto the bus. Breach of Tour Rule 14 was instigated.
Back to Charlie Rockets with the squad in high spirits, and looking forward to their night out on the town. Oh dear!!
Andy and Alan managed to blag an unoccupied room to ease the overcrowding problem.

Day 3: Monday morning and again a very blurry eyed start for most. Tales of the previous nights antics started to circulate. A select group of three, Tom H, Harry and Lucas had been brought back in a taxi which had a funny blue light on the top. Rob S had met the driver and his assistant at the door and been warned that if they were seen in the town again they would be taken to a different establishment for the night, possibly more. Point taken! Additionally Harry had been in breach of Tour Rule16.
Word went around that the hostel manager wanted to speak to the person-in-charge. When this was relayed to Jay, quote, “Well there’s a surprise”. Discussion took place as to what the summons was likely to be for, possibly using un-allocated rooms, noise well after curfew, and inappropriate behaviour from some of the boys? Jay duly reported to the office and stood in front of the rather attractive manager, Rebekka.
Two problems: 1) Number of rooms occupied to the number of rooms paid for- quickly resolved with an explanation.
2) What was the problem with the boys? Nothing.They are not angels, a bit rowdy but Charlie Rockets is used to that.
Problem was with an adult who she suggested should make an appointment to see a urologist. Enough said, anyway, apologies made and apologies given. All sorted!
There followed a free day to see the sights of Bruges, enjoyed by all. Onto the bus for an hour and a half drive to game no.2, for some reason this was a quieter journey must have been the change in seating arrangements!

Dendermonde RC 5 - Chipstead RFC Colts 47
A 6.30 kick-off played under floodlights where a few more lux wouldn’t have gone amiss. Again a side that man for man were bigger, but a bit lacking in their team work.
Captain for the game was Calum, who led his team out and rallied them for the kick off. Everyone eager to go, Joe P’s kick went high in the air and came down about 3 metres into the half. Not the start he was looking for. Things got a lot better and first half tries from Billy (2), Reece and George with Joe P’s conversions (4) put the tourists at a comfortable 0-28 at half time. Chipstead kept up the pressure in the second half, first try coming after 5 minutes when Ollie’s 30 metre boot down the pitch was chased down by Calum to take the ball over. Dendermonde came back and were rewarded with a try but Billy’s hat-trick and a final try from Keiran, both converted by Joe P, took the score out of reach.
Two great displays of rugby from the Colts which they and Chipstead RFC should be proud of. Whilst the score lines make it look a bit one sided, these teams were no pushovers and every player stepped up to the challenge. It’s the try scorers that get named, but rugby is all about teamwork, and the others in the squad, Tom H, Perry, Harry, Luke, Piers, Gerard, Ollie, Tom G, Lukas and Adam all played their part in the victories.
A few quiet beers with the very sociable Dendermonde lads and back to Bruges for the last night.
Curfew set for 1 o’clock was met with some disdain, however all promised to comply. Not the Boys hit the town, whilst the adults settled in the bar, Cliff lined up the drinks and par-100 was under way, Rob S becoming an early victim of brain freeze.
Jay made a friend in a Scouser who decided he wanted to join the party and seemed intent on taking over the group. A less than tactful “Will you just f**k off” saw him remove himself, but not before he had put 10 large beers on the table. Wadda guy. Andy decided to demonstrate one of his lesser known party tricks, of administering colonic irrigation with a half full beer bottle whilst walking across the bar with his trousers at half-mast. Very amusing. What made it more amusing was when Jay’s mate came over to annoy him further, retrieved his beer and walked away merrily swigging the bottle, totally oblivious to the previous location of said bottle a few minutes earlier. Chipstead 1- Scouser 0.
So it went on. 3 hours past curfew with only a few back, the rounding up process began. A few dads volunteered for the mission which was likened to herding sheep when there are not enough sheep dogs to control the pack. All back in the confines of Charlie Rockets to entertain the locals and every one in bed by 6. Well that was OK; they didn’t have to be up ‘till 10.
Day 4: Room inspection in the morning was surprisingly damage free, Palm duly arrived with the bus and the staff gave the tour party a cheery send off with comments as “Thanks for coming” all seemed sorry to see us go?
A quiet trip back to Calais and through the tunnel, head coach Jay presented with lavish gifts, en-route by Tour Captain Joe P for his part in the tour.
A quick de-brief in the White Hart, well 4 pints of decent beer rounded off a brilliant tour and one to stick in the memory. UK tour representative and organiser, Stella, was presented with flowers for the effort in getting the tour off the ground.
We all know touring is hard and the boys and Dads were fantastic.
Thanks should also go to Alan, Andy and Mike for all of their efforts over the years to get these boys playing such a high standard of rugby.
And so to bed…..
Nigel