4 Days, 5 Games, 3 Goals, Trannies, Long Walks, Bants, Black Buns, Beer & Hospitals.......Toulouse 2016
" An Injury is only a slow down, not a complete Stop "
Day 1
With late withdrawals, due to injury, the squad was slightly tweaked drafting in Nicky Hunt to help out up top just days before our departure. Nothing was gonna stop the rest of the squad getting to France not even a one armed Skipper, or the random fork found in Masons Hand Luggage at security? The pre tour pints and fry-ups started to flow at 6.00 am in the Red Lion among the boys.
After a short flight, following lessons in Selfies from Nicky and Beers all round, we arrived at our destination, Toulouse. With transfers sorted we were at our Hotel, The Palm Suites before Lunch. A quick look around a few checked in rooms, showed us this place was pretty decent. One free welcome Beer was never gonna be enough, so we started to order from the Bar, as Nicky Sunbathed and James held Daves Fag for him.
The center of Toulouse was our desired Destination as we got three cabs to accommodate the team. During the 6 hour / 10k walking tour of the city with various stops for beer, we finally gave in and got three more cabs back to the hotel were we met with Ivan and Andy. Being the civilized bunch of blokes we are we headed out to the steak house. Half of us ate Black Bunned burgers at 22 Euros each, the other half Ribeye Steaks at 28 Euros each and Mark Read a kids steak Portion. Final drinks in the hotel rounded of the first days activities for the squad.
Day 2
An early night gave us a fresh start for the days football ahead. After breakfast a few lads decided that we hadn't walked enough yesterday so we started another trek to find a shop. " We love a 20 minute wait " this became a theme of the weekend as we waited outside Decathlon for it to open. Inside was like a play area for the lads with keepy uppies, headers and even a game of hide and seek ensuing. Once we had wrecked the shop and grabbed essentials ( Beer ) from the supermarket we headed back to the pool to relax? before our first game...... This was never gonna happen. We decided Water Polo would be a good idea and following dunking, jumping, swimming, goals, splashing and even Mason accidentally?? kicking the ball in a Belgium Guys face from 2 feet away we were finally knackered and not relaxed as anticipated.
As we were making new friends / kicking balls in their faces in the pool, with other teams..... The draw was taking place for the competition:
Group A
England, Eurostar, Spain, Switzerland
Group B
France
Hungary
Italy
Belgium
After lunch we were transported to the ground and what a lovely pitch it was.
A opening ceremony consisting of the eight teams taking to the field to their national anthems had everyone up for this!
First Up was a charity game, basically for the old boys, so that included Loko's three oldest players, Ivan, Andy and Hayden. With the sun bearing down and a missed chance to open the scoring for the day by Hayden ( I was however on the floor ) Matt decided to sub Hayden for Nicky. This had an instant impact as his first touch with the outside of his boot sprayed the ball into the path of his team mate and applause was given all round. Following a few shots a well taken shot by Nicky from outside the box saw the team Loko was based in go one up. It finished this way, Played 1 won 1.
Englands first game was against Eurostar. Just five minutes in and disaster struck as Luke, up for a header, for a change, clashed heads with a Eurostar player and this resulted in a hell of a lot of blood pouring from a gash in his head. Following a shambolic display of first aid from the medics at the ground Luke was on his way to hospital for stitches. The ambulance hadn't even left the ground and we were another man down. James T fragile knee saw him end his tournament before the end of the first half of the first game. With two strikers down the beautiful pitch ruined with Lukes blood, the day ahead was not looking good.
We did however still dominate this game with Beni having a big influence and several chances including a close header for Gary that just went wide, but we was unlucky on all occasions. Tony along with the defense were never really tested. Just as things were not looking good Super Loko man himself, Ivan, popped up at the back post to header home a great cross from Dave. 1-0
Full Time
England 1-0 Eurostar
M.O.M: Beni
The second game of the day for England saw us play against Switzerland. With thoughts on Luke and only one recognized striker things could of went downhill. The fact is they didn't. Switzerland were not a great team at all but you can only beat the team in front of you and that is what we did, with two goals before halftime both taken by Lee Mustoe. Again the defense looked comfortable and we always know if you keep a clean sheet you simply cannot lose.
Full Time
England 2-0 Switzerland
M.O.M: Lee Mustoe
A good days Football result wise. We come here to play two and win two and that's exactly what we did. With Spain drawing earlier we knew we were already in the Semi Finals and just a point was needed to top our group. We were attracting attention from the other teams
With casualties a plenty we all hobbled back to the coach to endure the European humor and excitement of continually going around a roundabout as the other teams on our bus cheered and banged the windows of the bus. Onlookers looked on as we resembled the special bus with the window lickers that picks the special children up from school? As we arrived back at the hotel we relaxed in the pool before our evening meal followed by a determined good night out in town tonight.
With "Courtney 2 Teams " in tow we headed into town. i bar, Connextions and a Toulose style O'neils provided the entertainment for the night. The best part of it being when Gary decided to cover the head of a weird 4ft kid under his T Shirt in the pub only for him to turn around and threaten to punch Gary. Once everyone fell about pissing their selves laughing he decided to leave to avoid the embarrassment !
Day 3
Day 3
An early start today as we were picked up for the stadium straight after breakfast. With knocks to Hayden and Nicky, and Luke and James looking on from the sidelines today was always gonna be hard.
Spain up first. They passed around well " Tiki Taka??? " and held possession but never really threatened. We pushed forward well at times and when we didn't panic on the ball we looked good, this was however fairly rare. Some dodgy ref decisions led the game to fizzle out apart from a brilliant late cross from the right from Nicky to an incoming Hayden who's lunge only just managed to get his studs on the ball and see it hit the outside of the post!
Full Time
England 0-0 Spain
M.O.M: Mason Parsons
M.O.M: Mason Parsons
Top of the group finish!
Semi-Final
Next up in the semi's was Italy. They looked good in previous games so we knew this was gonna be hard. It was physical right from the start with elbows in and slide tackles all over. They cried, they rolled and whinged their way through a game that once again saw hardly any chances at either end! We looked nervous and constantly went long and hopeful?
We never looked liked conceding until the last two minutes of the game when a long ball over our defense saw their number 10 go through one on one with Tony and as he came to get the ball they clattered each other, Penalty! After he was done play acting like he had eaten a dodgy lasagna , he funnily enough was fit enough to take the penalty and dispatch it well, into the roof of the net.
Full Time
England 0-1 Italy
M.O.M: Undecided
We found our selves in a position where we had only let in one goal the whole entire tournament, and that was a suspect penalty, yet we were out at the semi final stage.
Third Place Play Off
Always a hard game to get up for and play in. Heads were down and more injuries. Luke, James, Nicky, Hayden, Ivan and Dave all carrying knocks. Spain wanted revenge for not beaten us earlier in the group. They once again passed well among each other. A long ball over the top saw at least two Spain players offside but the linesman / ref was not having none of it? It didn't help us moaning at the fact we were assigned a ref that didn't know what a foul throw was? Bad Bad call!!1-0
As we started to argue among ourselves we lost our way and found ourselves 2 down very quickly. 2-0. The second half we brought some pride back in relation to battling harder but again never really threatened. The goal of the tournament followed, when Andy was attempting to clear the ball just outside our area, he hit it and saw it smash into the top right hand corner of the goal! Great Goal.... just a shame it was in our net and not Spain's. 3-0
Another Spanish goal left us 4 down and in 4th Place overall. Heads down we left the pitch but knew we were tired from the heat and had all had a good tournament and were looking forward to the post match beers!
Full Time
England 0-4 Spain
M.O.M: Mason Parsons
We stayed to watch and cheer on Italys opponents in the Final, Hungary! They didn't let us down as they won the tournament on penalties for the second year in a row.
All that was now left of this tour was the gala dinner and awards. We were picked up and taken to Venus, Dinner Spectacle. As we walked in Nicky was scared, Tony was like a kid in a sweet shop and James started questioning the sex of everyone! Tits, Transvestites, Beyonce, Gaga, Meatloaf and even an appearance from a kinky Lion King Followed in the ever so drawn out 5 hour show, that by the way they felt the need to replay on a cinema screen from start to finish in case you had missed something. The presentation followed with England picking up their awards and Hungary being Crowned Old Boys Winners once again. All in all not a bad show / night just went on a bit too long.
Only thing left to do was present Mason Parsons with his bottle of Babysham for the prestigious award of England's Player Of The Tournament. He worked hard throughout the tournament at right back and made a lot of forward runs. The Spanish team after two days of grooming and stroking him wanted to make him their team mascot? Well Deserved Mase on both counts.
Day 4
Last day we never made breakfast and felt we hadn't walked enough so we decided to take another one looking at closed shops?
Strange old place Toulouse!
Cheers Lads for the laugh, it was a good few days away with Friends
Quote Of The Tournament
" Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn "
Old Boys Tournament Toulouse, France 2016
Next up in the semi's was Italy. They looked good in previous games so we knew this was gonna be hard. It was physical right from the start with elbows in and slide tackles all over. They cried, they rolled and whinged their way through a game that once again saw hardly any chances at either end! We looked nervous and constantly went long and hopeful?
We never looked liked conceding until the last two minutes of the game when a long ball over our defense saw their number 10 go through one on one with Tony and as he came to get the ball they clattered each other, Penalty! After he was done play acting like he had eaten a dodgy lasagna , he funnily enough was fit enough to take the penalty and dispatch it well, into the roof of the net.
Full Time
England 0-1 Italy
M.O.M: Undecided
We found our selves in a position where we had only let in one goal the whole entire tournament, and that was a suspect penalty, yet we were out at the semi final stage.
Third Place Play Off
Always a hard game to get up for and play in. Heads were down and more injuries. Luke, James, Nicky, Hayden, Ivan and Dave all carrying knocks. Spain wanted revenge for not beaten us earlier in the group. They once again passed well among each other. A long ball over the top saw at least two Spain players offside but the linesman / ref was not having none of it? It didn't help us moaning at the fact we were assigned a ref that didn't know what a foul throw was? Bad Bad call!!1-0
As we started to argue among ourselves we lost our way and found ourselves 2 down very quickly. 2-0. The second half we brought some pride back in relation to battling harder but again never really threatened. The goal of the tournament followed, when Andy was attempting to clear the ball just outside our area, he hit it and saw it smash into the top right hand corner of the goal! Great Goal.... just a shame it was in our net and not Spain's. 3-0
Another Spanish goal left us 4 down and in 4th Place overall. Heads down we left the pitch but knew we were tired from the heat and had all had a good tournament and were looking forward to the post match beers!
Full Time
England 0-4 Spain
M.O.M: Mason Parsons
We stayed to watch and cheer on Italys opponents in the Final, Hungary! They didn't let us down as they won the tournament on penalties for the second year in a row.
All that was now left of this tour was the gala dinner and awards. We were picked up and taken to Venus, Dinner Spectacle. As we walked in Nicky was scared, Tony was like a kid in a sweet shop and James started questioning the sex of everyone! Tits, Transvestites, Beyonce, Gaga, Meatloaf and even an appearance from a kinky Lion King Followed in the ever so drawn out 5 hour show, that by the way they felt the need to replay on a cinema screen from start to finish in case you had missed something. The presentation followed with England picking up their awards and Hungary being Crowned Old Boys Winners once again. All in all not a bad show / night just went on a bit too long.
Only thing left to do was present Mason Parsons with his bottle of Babysham for the prestigious award of England's Player Of The Tournament. He worked hard throughout the tournament at right back and made a lot of forward runs. The Spanish team after two days of grooming and stroking him wanted to make him their team mascot? Well Deserved Mase on both counts.
Day 4
Last day we never made breakfast and felt we hadn't walked enough so we decided to take another one looking at closed shops?
Strange old place Toulouse!
Cheers Lads for the laugh, it was a good few days away with Friends
Quote Of The Tournament
" Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn "
Old Boys Tournament Toulouse, France 2016
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