TOP DOGS ON TOUR
On Friday 14th April, a pack of dogs headed down to Canterbury for the 2006 Festival. This year’s permanent tourists comprised of Emma ‘Whippet’ Greenway, Lydia ‘Woof’ Greenway, Lynsey ‘Eskimo’ Askew, Sophie ‘Puppy’ Davies, Katy ‘Red Setter’ Morant, Debbie ‘Scottie’ Sawyer, Vicky ‘Husky’ Ives, Tara ‘Pluto’ Woodward, Emma ‘Pedigree’ Shepherd and Lucy ‘Hot Dog’ Shepherd with guests appearance from Jess ‘Random’ Riley, Ali ‘What a Star For Travelling Down Each Day’ Fox and Sarah ‘Blowout’ Bentley. Col, Howsey, Adam, Danny Mac, Sam B, Robbie, Butler, Nick B, Scott and Charlie also put in a sterling effort on the first 2 days and nights before leaving us to return to the relative safety of Patricks. Absolutely marvellous fun was had by all and here are a few of the tour highlights and things that I can remember (which obviously means I’ll have missed out sh*t loads)
Friday
All arrived at Kipps Hostel on time except for Pluto, Pedigree and Hot Dog who couldn’t resist the temptation of Bluewater on the A2 and were subsequently delayed by an hour. Big fineage. Dumped our stuff then headed to Polo Farm where we got our wristbands and ordered what was to be our first of many jugs of snakie b. A couple of jugs later and we were ready to hit the main pitch for our first game which we went on to cruise 6-0. Whippet scored 4 – GET IN!! – well done me! Anyway, enough about the hockey – after all, that was a just a little dent to our drinking time – and back to the highlights for the evening:
- Woof being rubbish and having to have a ‘power nap’ in the car very early doors – poor effort, I thought I’d taught her better than that.
- ‘Scottie’ pulling Scottie – how sweet
- Red Setter doing the first ‘shoe’ of the tour
- Eskimo losing her left shoe whilst doing the second shoe of the tour.
- Whippet losing her voice after only one round of ‘Funky Chicken’ – poor
- Husky and Eskimo for a spot of pole dancing
- Woof and Husky asking more or less every bloke in the room if they wanted a 3-some (and being turned down – it may be every man’s fantasy but in reality they’re wimps)
- The Boys being all round quality entertainment
Saturday
Eskimo kindly came and got me from polo farm at silly o clock in the morning having failed to make it back to the hostel – big fineage. Maccie D’s was our saviour as many dogs were suffering from the previous night’s festivities. Special mention to Red Setter here who felt so bad she decided it must have been ‘something she ate’ and nothing to do with the 20 pints of snakie b from the previous night –whatever! Trotted on down to polo farm around 11ish where we obviously had to get straight back on it. First match on grass at midday – loving it – won 2-0. Then a 5 hour wait until our next game on astro at 6pm. There was only one thing for it and that was snakie b all the way until then accompanied by plenty of banter obviously. Hot Dog showed her class at downing by beating all the boys with relative ease, ably accompanied by Pedigree. Whippet was challenged to proving her nickname by racing Adam, duly lost and then chundered. Nice. Future mental note to self: taking up sprinting challenges after 6 pints of snakie b is not wise. The challenge for the game later that day was that everyone had to play in a different teams tour shirt and hat or head band. Pedigree and Pluto were superb at this, securing different outfits for practically the whole team – good work dogs. 6pm eventually arrived and so we stumbled down to the pitch in the torrential rain to face Keele. Fortunately they appeared to be as smashed as we were and the game was played with much fun and gusto. Adam was comedy value in goal with Ali scoring on pitch. Best moments for me were Rob W streaking, Howesy being a girl and playing CF and general top stuff from the men. Final score was 6-0 to us but hockey most definitely was not the winner although Puppy did score 4 (b**ch hehe) Back to the bar where preparation for the Wild Wild West night quickly ensued. Evening highlights:
- ‘Scottie’ pulling Scottie – see any repetition here?
- Rob W sucking Woof
- Adam and Jess pulling then arguing for the rest of the night
- Husky bailing out early to go home for a cup of tea – old bird – big fineage
- Pluto pulling a random then dragging everyone back to his house for a ‘house party’
- Getting to the house party and us being the only ones there
- Stealing a walking stick from said random’s house
- All being caught trying to sneak the boys into the hostel for free
- Butler saying that he’d come down to surprise his wife and Hot Dog not cottoning onto the fact that this was actually quite a good excuse
- The Boys being all round quality entertainment
Sunday
Woke up to find that Jess had disappeared during the night. Phoned her and found out that she’d gone to polo farm to get her contact lenses from her car. The club was shut so she drove to the Holiday Inn and paid £65 for a room so that she could change her contact lenses. She did get a free brekkie and used the shower though so assured us all that it was ok. Nutter. Pluto eventually returned from her night of passion at random’s house and then had to abandon us to go and look after her horse. Big fineage. Once we’d all finished faffing, we headed back to polo farm to – yep, you guessed it – get back on it. A few pints later and lots of entertainment from The Boys with ‘Question’and we were ready for our game. Although we won this 5-0, it wasn’t all joy as Pedigree got hit in the eye with the ball and had to be rushed to hospital. Later found out that she needed 30 stitches. Seriously though Em, hope you get better soon mate. We were down to 9 but 2 of the Aardvarks very kindly agreed to come and play for us in addition to their player who already was. Stars. As I said though, we cruised through the game and it was back to the bar for the rest of the day as we now didn’t have to play until the final tomorrow morning – RESULT!! The Boys headed off to hospital which meant there were now only 7 of us left but did we make the most of the last night?? – hell yeah!! Evening highlights:
- Entertaining game of ‘Truth or Dare’ and ‘I Have Never’ – Back Ali.
- Being quality on karaoke?!
- Husky and Eskimo doing karaoke to the most un-karaoke-like song ever but improvising magnificently
- Scottie’s feet still smelling bl**dy great – how??
- Husky and Scottie leaving early doors to go for a meal and not returning – rubbish
- Subsequent departure meaning that I was the oldest tour member left by 6 whole years!!!
- Someone throwing up in Eskimo’s shoe and her putting it back on without washing it. Classy chick.
- Harry High Pants
- ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, how sexy do I look? Is it a) 9.5 b) 9.75 or c) 9.999999?’
- Thinking that the Aardvarks mascot was Eeyore
- Whippet and Woof trying to corrupt the Aardvarks by making them down. When this failed, resorted to rugby tackling them (I can’t actually remember this but was told on Monday that it definitely happened – oops)
Monday
We’d somehow managed to make it into the final where we were facing the Aardvarks. Feeling pretty awful and having realised that they actually weren’t drunk last night, we were not overly confident of victory. However, with Pluto making a sterling effort to get back down having finished with her horse, Blowout Bentley finally arriving and 2 ringers, we thought we may as well give it our best shot. Having gone 1-0 down we pulled it back when Whippet nut-megged the keeper on a short corner. They again took the lead but only for Whippet to score another to bring it back to level-pegging and this is how it stayed until the final whistle went. Penalty flicks it was and with Ali being a superstar in goal by not letting any in and with Whippet and Puppy both scoring their flicks, we won 2-0. GET IN!! Even now I can’t really fathom how we won the whole thing taking into account the states we were in but we got a lovely big cup and some champers – brilliant!
Summary
An absolutely awesome tour with some quality hardcore drinking. Special mention must go to Puppy who defied her tender years to be one of the top drinkers in the group. A few more of these tours and I’m pretty sure we can ruin her blossoming hockey career!! Also a special mention to me (he he) as I scored more goals this tournament than I had all season!! Am seriously thinking that next season I’m going to have to have several pints of snakie b before each game! Having said before the start of the tour that after all the hassle with people dropping out, there was no way I was going to organise another one, I have already changed my mind. Top Dogs will definitely be back for Canterbury 2007 – we have to defend our title after all. Great stuff dogs … It’s been emotional ;o)
Love to you all,
Whippet x
