Thursday

It’s always the same when the minibus is parked outside Longlevens on the morning of departure for the first GPSFA tour of the season. There is more than a tingle of excitement in the air as people consider what might lie in store over the next three days or so. An expectation of fun and freedom that only this sort of enterprise creates. The thrill of being able to do your own thing without being tied down by outside influences. Counting down the seconds until the bus eventually pulls away. And then, that greatest of moments when the other lot finally disappear from view and the all-out partying can well and truly begin. Yes, it’s always the same: the parents are utterly overwhelmed by both excitement and exhilaration as their long-awaited fifty-six hours of liberation and social emancipation can finally begin.

Meanwhile, on the bus, there are a few initial (Christmas) songs, but thereafter no more than a general hubbub as we reach Reading Services in double-quick time and the queue outside Gregg’s immediately doubles in length. JS, meanwhile, decides that a cone of Burger King fries constitutes the ideal pre-match meal, RB savours a chocolate-topped doughnut in front of the salivating throng and DD surveys the early-morning gathering while contemplating who to eat for his first tour meal.

Brockwood Farm Sports Ground has some fine facilities with well-appointed changing rooms and a very good pitch, but the Gloucester performance doesn’t follow suit. JM produces a succession of fine saves either side of Captain Fabian’s assist and DD’s finish that sees us lead against the run of play, but two poor goals from a visiting perspective see Woking lead at the break. Another giveaway early in the second half moves the hosts further ahead, but the last quarter sees the team play with renewed energy and despite not reducing the deficit, we finish the contest on a more positive note than ever seemed likely around fifteen minutes previously.

Nice Auntie Barnett has produced GPSFA’s first-ever tour flag and the team poses with the ensign in the background for a very fetching post-match photo. There’s a small spelling error in the name of our destination, but following an extensive, one-second survey of our team members, DD, for reasons unknown, is selected to stand in front of the faux pas and instantly half the flag disappears from view.

Having declined to use the real facilities at Woking, NC indulges in a sustained period of leg-crossing as we head down the M3 for our second service stop of the day, where he displays an impressive turn of pace to just reach the loos in the nick(o) of time.

Elsewhere, The BOS can’t find his packed lunch, so carefully scans the butty counter at The Spar before buying a ham & cheese sandwich. Back at the picnic table, he meticulously extracts each slice of cheddar, an act closely scrutinised by RB who immediately doubles the content of his own offering. JM can’t find his packed lunch either (as he’s forgotten to bring one), but he doesn’t bother scanning anything and eats the first (inanimate) thing The Spar has to offer.

West Quay, Southampton and it’s all aboard the Red Falcon, where Five Commas gives the first hints that a future geographer may be lurking in our midst. RB decides that Rose Bukater (Kate Winslet in the film), having the same initials as his good self should be properly remembered, so indulges in a very passable Titanic impression on the upper deck: arms spread out, head thrown back, hair blowing in the sea breeze. Five Commas, fearing the worst, casts a concerned eye across The Solent, but thankfully there’s not a single iceberg in sight. ‘We’re parked on Deck A; definitely Deck A,’ proclaims TB as, an hour later, we descend the steep side staircase in search of the minibus, which we find precisely where we left it in the middle of Deck E. Memories of Woody Burgess’s 2018/19 navigational prowess come to mind….

A final thirty minutes in the charabanc leads us to the Sandhill, a 20-room, family-run hotel at the west end of Sandown. In the lounge, rules are established and rooms allocated for the first time this season. Five Commas and Ama-Dou-Dou-Dou are in 16, Mount William Mckinley and The BOS are billeted in 17; Room 14 is inhabited by TB, JM and JS, while Room 8 sees FF, DD, Titanic and NC in occupation.

The 5.45 dinner table is split into two parts: the ketchup brigade and the rest. Ama-Dou-Dou-Dou, MWM and Captain Fred are most definitely non-ketchup; the rest, apart from BOS and TB are sent down the other end. The BOS, being extremely pleasant, squeezes out no more than a milligram of the vile red stuff, while TB, who is far less nice, initially plays along with the request to put only a small amount on his burger, only to stick a huge dollop on the side of his plate no more than twenty seconds later.

All plates are spotless within five and a half minutes of the main course arriving – all that is, apart from that belonging to NC, who in a touching philanthropic moment, takes pity on those less fortunate than himself and donates a quarter of his burger to JS, who chews appreciatively on his unexpected bonus and another quarter to JM, who doesn’t chew the relative morsel at all.

Down to the front and a pleasant walk along the beach wall, past some expensive beach huts and a cliff that Five Commas impressively and correctly describes as ‘eroding’. At the entrance to Sandown Pier, someone says, in a tone of awe and wonder: ‘Everything you’ve always wanted in front of your very eyes,’ before losing a tenner in double-quick time. While the arcades are excitedly explored, a succession of

phone calls from the bench outside ensues, before the following memorable conversation occurs:

8.35pm. (Question): Amadou, do you want to phone home?

(Amadou): I don’t want to.

(Question): Are you sure?

(Amadou): I’m sure.

8.40pm. (Amadou): I haven’t phoned home yet.

Back at the ranch, Room 8, being the largest, is designated the Diary Room and everyone discovers that the ‘D’ of Dream Marks means exactly that. While some fervent scribing is going on, Vice-Chairman Adrian completes a Room Inspection and is suitably impressed with the state of all four of the man-caves before proclaiming that, incredibly, Room 14 (JM, JS and TB), against all the odds, is leading after Day One with a score of 9.5 out of 10. In the diary stakes, Five Commas takes an early half-mark lead over JS, while there’s a whole gaggle of scribers just point-five of a mark behind in equal third spot.

Friday

Robin Williams used to holler: ‘Good Morning, Vietnam’ to usher in the new day in the 80s film of the same name, but it would take a fair bit more than that to gain an immediate response from three of this year’s four rooms; Five Commas and Ama-Dou-Dou-Dou buck the trend, though and are already up and ready to move by the 7.45 cuckoo call. Captain Fred is first to stir in Room 8, while NC, DD and Titanic display little interest that Friday has dawned and that there’s an exciting day in prospect. Mount William and The BOS show little initial intent either, the BOS’s eventual walk to the bathroom resembling the early frames of ‘Scooby Doo on Zombie Island’. The film didn’t really catch on, either. Room 14 is genuinely shocking. JS sits up, eyes still locked shut, while JM simply turns over and extends the duvet over his thatch. TB, meanwhile, rises Lazarus-like on the top bunk, hair extending vertically upwards, giving him the appearance of a porcupine that’s been connected to the mains for the last eight and a half hours.

Breakfast demolished, we head west via Shanklin and Ventnor to Blackgang Chine, the UK’s oldest amusement park, having been established nearly two hundred years ago in 1843. Over the years, large parts of it have collapsed into the sea below, giving Five Commas another golden nugget for his upcoming geomorphological dissertation. We start at the hedge maze, where Mount William & Static’s attempt at hiding from the pursuing masses lasts about as long as Niko Clutterbuck’s efforts to eat a meal and they’re both captured within forty-five seconds flat.

Down through Dinosaur Land and over the bridge to the Underwater Kingdom, where an attempt to see who gets lost first fails miserably as all eleven members of the group remain impressively together. No-one’s scared by Rumpus Mansion, though Cowboy Land’s imitation horses, saloon and jail seem to capture the imagination of the majority of the clan. The Crooked House on both the outward and return loops elicits some high-pitched squealing from our eternally brave goalkeeper, before the newer area of the park: Water Force, roller coaster and Evolution – activities all based around investigating the limits of one’s G-Force, provides a relaxing location for the next fifty minutes or so – well, at least the tables outside the cleverly named ‘iscream’ parlour do.

The gift shop is the park’s final attraction, though it’ll be interesting to see how many parental presents meet a similar fate to the keepers in the dinosaur park – that is, completely devoured before they actually get home.

A twenty-minute jaunt through Chale and Rookley via a succession of country lanes brings us to Robin Hill Country Park and lunch on the benches bordering the extensive car park. DD will later bullet-point in his diary that one of his three favourite bits of the day was: ‘Eating our sandwiches TOGETHER’, which says it all, really.

NC leads the line to the loos, again arriving just in the nick(o) of time, before we enter the second maze of the day, a large, fence-panelled labyrinth through which two teams race against each other in opposite directions to see who’ll be the first group to get their last player back out into the open air. Four races each result in the same outcome – the group that enters on the far side always wins, thus maintaining a 26-year outcome that was first discovered way back in the mid-to-late 90s.

A run down the hill to the Safari adventure playground and a walk through the woods and across the wooden bridges leads to the toboggan run, a polished channel down which people descend at a variety of speeds depending on both their bravery and the amount of forward motion they can generate. ‘I don’t really fancy it,’ says Ama-dou-dou-dou, while standing in the line waiting for the first run. ‘Can we go again?’ shouts Ama-dou-dou-dou within seconds of his G-Force leaving him as he zooms around the final bend. We do go again – and again, with DD and Mount William Mckinley being particularly quick on all three of their speed-of-sound runs. Static, on the other hand, has to content himself with the Dowager Award for slowness in all areas, particularly on the bends. As no-one knows what this means, PC complaints against the Editor will hopefully be kept to a bare minimum.

There’s still time to climb the Squirrel Run and cross the bridges in the trees before taking some liquid refreshment on board and reaching Colossus, a massively swinging pirate ship that for some unknown reason people seem desperate to ride in. ‘You must be joking,’ says NC, a spectacularly sensible young man. ‘It’s not the Titanic,’ says RB, who’s already decided that having your arms spread out, head thrown back and hair blowing in the IOW breeze is not the sort of thing that lends itself to this sort of vessel. Well, not if you want to play tomorrow, that is. ‘I don’t really fancy it,’ says Ama-dou-dou-dou, while standing in the line waiting for the first run. ‘Can we go again?’ shouts Ama-dou-dou-dou, within seconds of the ship’s gigantic hull coming to a momentary standstill.

Dinner time and DD takes just two minutes and forty-four seconds to consume three sausages, mash, peas and the pattern on his plate, a performance that makes Captain Fred, who’s sitting next to him, fear that he might be next. Most people have proved themselves to be very good eaters; in fact, everyone has consumed everything bar Mount William and Ama-Dou-Dou-Dou, who have each left small amounts and NC, who seems to have adopted a Jane Fonda-like diet, minus the food.

We have a short diary session to allow ten people to digest their dinner and one to digest the room’s oxygen content as he hasn’t eaten enough to set his digestive system in motion, before a quick change sees the wonderfully alternative JM festoon himself in bright red & orange shirt and shorts, with a pair of orange sliders to match. A five-minute walk brings us to Sandown’s Heights Leisure Centre and an hour-and-a-quarter’s swimming that everyone seems to enjoy. In the admin lounge on the opposite side of the glass viewing panel, there are emails to answer and calls to make, the first of which is to Coach Lee, who reveals that the Bs haven’t come first in either of their tour games to date but are nonetheless having a great time, while the second, to the Real Manager, reveals that Gloucestershire hasn’t been anywhere near as exciting as the IOW toboggan run this afternoon, but we somehow guessed that anyway.

Saturday

It’s probably fair to say that the 6.45 wake-up call does not meet with universal approval, though the inhabitants of Room 16 are again first off the mark in the rise & shine stakes. There are more locked eyes, grumpy turning overs and shocking static in 14, while the Zombie impressions in 17 are clearly contagious as Mount William has now developed the self-same condition. As he should, Captain Fred again leads the way in Room 8, though it’s a full half-minute of flashing lights and early-morning bonhomie before even our leader thinks about stirring. The other three just ignore the disco and pretend Saturday 29th October hasn’t arrived.

Breakfast done and checkout completed, we head northwards, enter Lane 17 at the East Cowes ferry terminal and are waved straight on to the Red Osprey for the return crossing. Vice-Chair Adrian volunteers for upper deck duty, giving all those who wish to savour the sights and sounds of The Solent the opportunity to do so for five windswept minutes. It can be a pretty dangerous time as one member of staff will concur – the Force Ten gale did for Coach Stalley a decade or so ago – one minute he had a full head of 60s-style hair; the next, well, you do the maths.

Being in the front bit of the side lane of the ferry means you’re the first of the last group of vehicles to be waved off and this, coupled with extensive roadworks on the M3, mean we’re around fifteen minutes late arriving at Speenhamland. VC Adrian has rung ahead though and found the combination for the entry gate, the pitch and changing area being a five-minute walk apart. ‘Thank goodness,’ says NC, but the toilet isn’t opened until the Newbury Girls’ team eventually gets back to the school following their win over our female counterparts. Once again, entry to the facilities is finally gained just in the nick(o) of time.

They say you can tell the difference between towns by the quality of their shops and we gain access to the pitch by way of the Waitrose car park and a walkway that doesn’t resemble the Wembley Stadium tunnel. ‘What’s Waitrose?’ asks someone, as we troop through the parking lots. ‘Something you get in Cheltenham,’ replies VC Adrian, a reply that ends any further speculation on the topic.

Newbury claim an early lead, but Double D soon levels before foraging through for a second time to put us 2-1 up. Ama-dou-dou-dou is inspired at right mid and The BOS similarly at left back, while JS and Titanic are excellent in centre-midfield. NC continues his fine form of Thursday morning at right back and Captain Fred slots in seamlessly at left mid, while Mount William at centre back would be a towering presence if he were DD’s size, so it’ll just have to be a metaphorical tribute instead. Double D, meanwhile, is predator-like at the front and Alternative a steady influence in goal.

A BOS assist and the sweetest of strikes from DD sees Predator complete a twelve-minute treble and when Captain Fred nets a trademark back-post header from JS’s corner, all before the 20-minute mark, the turnaround is complete. Predator retires for his mid-game rest and NC has a breather too, meaning Static and Five Commas enter the fray. Always good when changes are made and the intensity is maintained and it’s a happy half-time interval with the VC extolling; ‘They’re transformed, they’re transformed,’ and he’s absolutely right.

‘I’m shattered,’ says Amadou, requesting to exit the action at the earliest possible opportunity and, for no obvious reason, takes up a position next to the candy container as the second half gets underway. We don’t add to our tally, though both Predator and Static each stretch the home defence before Newbury pull a goal back with six minutes remaining. Determined defending, with Mount William to the fore and a fine save from Alternative thwart any hopes of a late Newbury comeback as victory is finally secured.

It’s a happy drive back up the M4 to Membury, our final service break of the tour. Harry Ramsden’s has disappeared and been replaced by an all-day breakfast kiosk, which clearly isn’t correct as it’s in the final throes of closing and the clock hasn’t even struck two. The team largely feast from red & white boxes with a picture of a Kenny Rogers lookalike on the side, while, with the demise of HR’s, the dreaded Burger King (no ketchup) is the only viable supplier of senior staff sustenance.

We’re back at GL2 a couple of minutes early; bags are removed, diaries handed out and extraneous purchases returned. There is a mixture of sadness and glee on the parents’ faces as the squad dismounts: sadness that their fifty-six-hour knees-up has come to a sudden and very obvious end and happiness that it’s only 116 days to the next one.

#Carpe Diem

A big thank-you to everyone who made IOW 2022 happen: Adam 1 at Woking & Adam 2 at Newbury for the games and hospitality, the staff at The Sandhill for whom nothing is too much trouble, the man on the ship for taking the time to compliment the boys on their manners and behaviour, Vice-Chairman Adrian for chalking up yet another GPSFA tour and all the players for being such great versions of themselves and such terrific ambassadors for our city wherever we went.

GPSFA Isle of Wight Tour Party: Alternative; Nick(o)time, Mount William McKinley; The BOS, Static, Titanic, Warrior, Five Commas, Ama-Dou-Dou-Dou, Captain Fred, Predator.