Thursday

Before everyone sets off, the meeting place of Longlevens sees a bunch of really happy parents – almost too happy to be getting rid of their children for a few days.

The Minibus Journey starts with James driving the bus……with a bad back. All boys looked concerned and rightly so.

The journey goes along nicely with Hawkins sleeping his way through the noise somehow.

The Coin game sees Douglas, Bailey and Cohen get first Championship points, whilst Simpson was the ultimate loser.

The first Services stop sees Matumba and McBride have the breakfast of Champions – Ice Cream from KFC. Of course, more gets around McBride’s face, than in his mouth.

Spicy crisps seems to have Glynn, Jackson and Wood struggling whilst Bailey and Douglas show they can handle their spice.

We finally make it to Wembley – parking “ages away”. Coach Butler is not happy as he has to walk further with his bad back.

During the tour, Glynn was tackled by a standing post whilst Wood worryingly walked into a massive 8ft post and followed that with being tackled by a step.

As expected, when the boys were allowed to be loud, they took full advantage. Oppositely, when they weren’t supposed to, that didn’t work so well.

We were joined by 26 other members of the terrified public. The boys were so eager to follow the tour guide, Dan, that they could probably taste his t-shirt – the poor guy.

The changing rooms bought lots of rushing to have photos in front of their favourite stars’ shirts. Hawkins seeing anything GK related needed a photo. Cohen, Douglas and Matumba continue to show they’re hard men by not wanting to smile in most photos.

Bailey, Jackson, Simpson and Douglas obviously love their teammates so much they have to be told a few times to “leave each other alone”

Glynn continued to look for N.Forest memorabilia, but couldn’t find anything….obviously, but Coach Butler mentions for the 16th time that West Ham played there in the 1923 Cup Final (and still lost).

After the tour, the race to the toilet takes place only to find there’s one toilet working.

This is quickly followed by an actual race on Wembley Way where Cohen reigns victorious followed by Bailey and Hawkins completing the race 5mins later.

Out of the whole tour, the bit the boys seem to enjoy the most was finding the barriers on Wembley Way Steps that they could slide down. Members of the public check their Google Maps to make sure they haven’t arrived at London Zoo.

Lunches are consumed in a car park before getting on route to Bexley.

10-minutes in, Coach Harris all of a sudden panics and looks up how to learn Sign Language. The bus is so quiet that it surely could have only been age catching up with him. Low-and-behold, the boys are just tired and really quiet. Harris cancels his hearing test with Specsavers.

We arrive at Bexley with time to spare and take the boys for a walk on to a golf course to stretch their legs. Of course, “Don’t go in the Bunkers” means ‘Go in the Bunkers’ and “Don’t get yourself wet” means ‘try and jump the massive puddles and get your feet wet’.

This time it’s Simpson who gets tackled by an inanimate object – this time it’s a full-sized building. If I wasn’t concerned about these kids before, I am now.

The evening of Diaries and more Pizza was followed by a Wembley Quiz.

The Jammy Joms, consisting of Glynn, Hawkins and McBride finished first – only dropping 3 points. 1 point behind was Black Ops, with Messrs Matumba, Douglas, Wood & Cohen. Coach Butler showed his Comprehension by finishing 4 points behind those whilst Team Babblers, Jackson, Bailey, Gil & Simpson finished miles behind everyone else.

Friday

At Breakfast, Hawkins mistakes a member of the public for staff asking her very kindly to help him with his juice.

Cohen and Douglas don’t eat their crust and think they’re sly by hiding it in tissue. Bailey orders a breakfast that he can’t finish.

McBride has egg around his mouth and Gil hasn’t said anything with a sound of over 1DcB.

Getting the boys ready for Golf and Swimming proves difficult for Simpson as he wears both his shorts and boxers with the plan of taking them both off at Swimming to then just wear his Shorts.

Getting in the bus, the boys release a sigh of relief as Coach Harris is driving the Bus.

We arrive at Mulligans Mini Golf and members of the public quickly look at their Google Maps to make sure they haven’t arrived at London Zoo.

There are some interesting techniques used for golf – especially by Matumba, Douglas, Glynn and Gil. Members of the public could be seen diving out of the way of colourful golf balls.

Some boys were ‘smashing each other’s balls’ and Coach Harris couldn’t work out how to tell them off without laughing. Simpson suggested I say “touching” instead of smashing, but quickly realised that wasn’t better either.

Somehow, Coach Butler beats Harris at Minigolf, but Butler was in control of the scorecard, so….you do the math!!

Healthy Chips are the order for lunch at Minigolf before a game of Taskmaster. Jackson shows his kind side by offering his chips to Matumba, so that he didn’t have to wait. McBride has sauce around his mouth and Gil is quiet.

For his kindness, Jackson got tackled by a carpet and went down like a sack of…..spuds! Glynn, not wanting to miss out, did the same a little later on! If I wasn’t worried about these kids earlier, I am now!

A little game of Taskmaster helped kill some time. Little Sister Douglas was somehow brilliant at predicting how many fingers each team were holding up. A great Assistant.

Bailey, Gil and McBride were all very close at predicting exactly 20 seconds, but Bailey was only 0.6seconds out.

Glynn, Douglas & Jackson had to predict whether Coach Butler held a photo of Messi or Ronaldo and they were all rubbish – however Douglas won after guessing two.

Cohen, Wood & Simpson had to throw a stone into either a cup or tray and only Simpson managed to find a target.

Finally, Simpson (again), Matumba and Hawkins had to roll a golf ball into a certain distance whilst trying to actually finish second. A brilliant play from Simpson pushed Matumba’s ball further to finish second and therefore top.

Swimming at Cascades was very much enjoyed by the boys. Upon entry, the 90+ members of the public got out of the pool to quickly look at their Google Maps to make sure they hadn’t accidentally gone to London Zoo.  The first 10 minutes saw Bailey get told off 3x times by the Lifeguards. Obviously, when they tell him to only jump in front and feet first, that means do flips and dive in.

The boys try to take on Harris again, but obviously lose. Butler couldn’t join in as (if you didn’t know) he has a bad back apparently.

The Red Slide, also known as Typhoon has been confirmed as the fastest slide in history. McBride, Hawkins, Douglas, Simpson and Glynn all decided to have a headbutt fight with the slide and lost. Glynn decided to try again and lost again. Coach Harris decided to give it a go and hit speeds of 94mph – coming out the end of the slide like a final scene from Free Willy.

The boys love the floats. A scene from the Titanic is re-enacted with Matumba, Douglas, Wood, Simpson, McBride, Glynn, Jackson & Bailey all fighting over the rectangular device. Hawkins has the right idea as he sits on his own mini float drifting away and likewise Gil and Cohen find a float near the beachside and practice diving onto that.

Hawkins gets a mysterious bump on his head after Butler turned him off his float. Social Services were called.

The Beefeater is the destination for Dinner. Bailey again orders something that he can’t finish. Glynn proceeds to eat it, but gets told to avoid the Cucumber as Bailey had nibbled some. Glynn says, “which one….this one?” – as he holds up a Carrot in his hand.

Cohen struggles to sit still again and even takes a knife to the end of the table hoping to saw it in half and McBride strangely doesn’t have any food around his mouth. Coach Harris worries.

Gil sits quietly again, but does try to wipe out a waitress on route back from the toilets and kicks Coach Butler’s proverbial in the coin game.

The Diaries are quite hard to settle into for the boys, but once they did, some great writing was produced. Gil and Jackson gaining the first 10s for Diary of the season. Rooms aren’t quite as tidy tonight and Simpson manages to pull a whole unit off the wall in his bedroom.

Saturday

Wake up calls show that the incumbents of Room 114, McBride, Hawkins and Glynn follow suit of most mornings and are dressed and ready for breakfast already while Douglas and Matumba follow suit of every morning in their room and need waking up.

At breakfast, a kind lady called Sandra – also the Councillor of Swanley….and who attended Gloucester College when she was young funnily enough, was sat with her 11-year old son and somehow wrangled for all of our kids to eat for free (a Beefeater rule of 1 Adult means 2 kids eat free, but yet somehow she added more to that). Hawkins said that he would like to go and thank her and did. As Coach Harris and Butler watch on, Hawkins is embraced for a big hug. “I couldn’t get out of it – she just came in for one!” He later quipped.

The game against Woking was played on a heavy pitch with a heavy ball, which led to a tiresome first half where the boys over complicated things. A big fat positive from the half though was Gil bagging his first goal of the season, scoring at the far post. The delight of all the players, parents and coaches was a lovely moment. The second half saw far more football and the boys creating many chances. Wood bagged a hat-trick in the game while Bailey, Simpson and McBride popped up with goals of their own.

An eventful trip to Swindon Town saw us get sent into the ground on the wrong side, sitting behind the benches to start and only seeing 75% of the pitch. We did however see Mk Dons take a two-goal lead early before being moved across ground to our seats. Although the view was now unblocked, we’d obviously entered into the reprobate area. Some might say some of our boys would fit in – yet some of these people were ‘interesting people’.

Cohen, Bailey & Matumba try the best to fit in shouting at any player that came near us.

Leaving the game with a few minutes to go, our biggest bit of action saw us all being abused by a couple of grumpy OAPs and some vile good-for-nothings as apparently we were “in the bleeping way” when the ball was out of play and in the opposite direction of where we were. The boys loved it.

The final part of the journey home was met with much disappointment as were weren’t stopping off at the Services. Coaches Butler and Harris rush back (as much as the minibus would allow) to get everyone back to the parents who were originally excited to see their children off.

Overall, two successful games, some great activities enjoyed, lots of ‘healthy’ food inhaled and some lovely moments with the boys had.

Thank you so much to all the parents who travelled to support the boys. It really great to hear the encouragement on the side of the pitch.

Gloucester B: Hawkins, Bailey, Jackson, Gil, Simpson, McBride, Matumba, Cohen, Wood, Glynn & Douglas