Author’s Note

What follows is a behind-the-scenes look at some of the personalities, events, accusations & revelations that were Jersey 2025. This review is a memoir from an A Team perspective as that’s where the editor largely was, so, Andrew Foran apart, B Squad people are mentioned only fleetingly in comparison. The balance is restored in the B Team blog however, where the reverse happens.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this piece are those of the editor and should not be mistaken for those of GPSFA, any other member of the association or indeed anyone else residing in the semi-civilised world. This is (mostly) a work of non-fiction and as such, any resemblance to actual persons, living or otherwise, events or locales, is entirely intentional.

Dramatis Personae

Players

AD1 (Alex Drobnjak). Good goalkeeper. Good eater. Good writer. And utterly mad.

Machine (Finley Chambers-Caine). Extremely funny in a straight sort of way. Top artist.

Predator (Sonny Fleetwood). Eats. Plays. Sleeps. Repeat.

B-Day (Harrison Palmer). August-born. Tenacious. Popular with security guards. Mischievous grin.

Silent Assassin (Dontaye Coleman). Bone-eating, barnacle wearing, tape-losing utility player.

Cygnet (Josh Sullivan). Walking thesaurus. Rockpool lover. Loses everything. Scary stare.

Barry (Henry Hill). Calligraphic, Van der Valk lookalike. Not very tidy. Likes heading.

Fivechips (Noel Holmes). Silky, nugget-eating, feather-sprouting, room-tidying, midfielder.

Marianne (Super Cole Campbell). Pacey. Athletic. Great hair. Extremely nice.

Claude George (Nolan Manhiri). Invisible, funny, safecracking, sibling-loser.

AD9 (Abdul Diallo). Loud, well-mannered, left-footed, money-saver. No peas, please, Louise.

Others

Andrew Foran. Driver. Socialite. Bruce Forsyth lookalike. Gloucester man desperately seeking friendship.

Romeo (himself). Eats. Sleeps. Eats. Sleeps. Eats. Bruce’s carer.

Coach Wilson. The Real Room Inspector. Part-time navigator. Full time Sudoku-gator.

Coach Beardsell. Apprentice Inspector. Full-time navigator. Almost a Pathfinder.

Coach Harris. Creative. Innovative. Less heavy than last year. Slightly. Bad cop.

Coach Wixey. Organised. Relaxed. Sanguine. Good cop.

The Editor. Old. Grey. Forgetful. Deaf. And they’re the good bits.

King Pat of Jersey. Festival organiser. 49 years. Legend.

Saturday

‘Yes, we’re away!’ is the super-enthusiastic cry from the middle of the Aston’s coach as we pull off from GL2 at precisely 8.15am: people on the bus are waving to the throng on the pavement – the throng on the pavement is waving to the people on the bus. For the people standing outside the entrance to LJS, the waiting is finally over and the anticipation of eight days of independence and adventure is at a level that can best be described as fever-pitch. The 22 people on the bus, meanwhile, buckle up for a quiet chat, a game of Uno and the drawing of some interesting self-portraits as we head seamlessly down the M4 towards Southampton.

We’re at the airport and Coach Harris has forgotten his photographic ID, but there’s a simple solution due to the miracles of modern technology, while arriving only seventy minutes prior to the scheduled flight time means there’s limited hanging around before boarding, even taking into account there’s a twenty-minute delay in proceedings for reasons known only to the air traffic controller. Ben Jones (8.2) and Theo Parker (8.5) are recorded on the digital scale as having by far the lightest bags, while Swan’s case is considerably heavier, so he’s probably remembered to bring some clothes with him for a change. Or, as with London, maybe his bag is just rammed full of pants.

Apart from the plane, the only other delay is caused by Andrew Bruce Forsyth Foran, who has entered into a one-way conversation with a bespectacled man of indeterminate age and a lady wearing a ‘seen better days’ grey jacket and a rather perplexed frown. ‘We’re from Gloucester,’ chortles Bruce, before entering into a ten-minute dialogue that no-one at all pays any attention to. ‘We really must go,’ says the grey-jacketed lady when AF finally pauses for air, ‘our train is due to leave five minutes ago.’

Much to their surprise, Henrietta, Swan and B-Day are pinpointed by the security machine and patted down, as are Coach Wilson (iron lung) and Coach Beardsell (metallic leg), the former clearly disappointed it’s a hirsute man with bulging eyes and a heavy hand that administers the obligatory search.

Thankfully, both propellers on Flight SI3361 are working and we’re up and down before AD1 can say too much, which is a result in itself. Bags are hauled and cases wheeled across the airport car park to where our designated Mont Nicolle minibus awaits, the Bs having been quicker out of the blocks to grab the much newer and swankier, La Moye, vehicle.

On arriving at the hotel, it’s straight into lunch, where Super Cole Campbell has an immediate pea issue, the Silent Assassin a half-burger disaster and NH a reluctance to consume his last five chips. Little do they realise that these few key minutes will dictate their standing in the week’s JFL (Jersey Food League) and in NH’s case, the bestowing of a new name that will live with him throughout the eight-day tour.

The allocation of rooms is always a greatly anticipated Day One event and the slightly upturned mouths of both the Silent Assassin and Claude suggest that 128 will be home to two pretty happy chappies. There are knowing nods from AD9 and Fivechips upon the realisation that both are fairly tidy people and as such, 130 will likely be a leading contender for the

‘Room of the Week’ award. Being honest, AD9’s nod is slightly more obvious than that of Fivechips, whose eyes betray the realisation that, while he’s happy with his new housemate, there may be a little bit of extra work to do.

Henrietta, Super Cole Campbell and B-Day (as opposed to bidet) seem quite content to be the Three Amigos, though no-one mentions that it’s always harder for ‘the three’ rather than a two to gain high room marks – we’ll have to see if that prophecy comes true for number 131.

There’s clear and obvious glee as AD1 and Predator are allocated 132, while both Machine and Swan are each wondering how they’ll keep the other fella in check as they troop off to 133, which is a special room in that it’s got a corridor with the bedroom at one end and the bathroom at the other. Not so special if you’re caught short at two in the morning though, but nobody mentions the downside as they’ll no doubt discover this for themselves before too many nights have elapsed.

Unpacking completed, it’s back in the bus as we Go West, though thankfully the passengers are too young to get into proper Village People mode. Weather permitting, La Baye is usually the venue for our first island ice cream, as the beach at St Ouen is barely a hundred steps away, and today is no exception. The troupe are in the sea within five minutes, AD1 wearing as little as is legally allowed, while Super CC instantly regrets not wearing shorts, having to constantly roll up his tracksuit bottoms and hope his knee joints are big enough to stop them sliding down again.

Not wishing for a minute-by-minute account of the Southern Premier League (South) fixtures, we ignore the respective Twitter feeds and wait till five o’clock for the all-important final results. ‘Buzzing,’ exhorts Predator on hearing that Swindon Supermarine have beaten Frome Town 1-0 in the proverbial relegation six-pointer. ‘Absolutely buzzing,’ he reiterates (on at least four occasions). Well, glad someone is.

Dinner options are roast chicken with the usual trimmings or a variety of ‘kid grub’. Only Predator goes for the proper food, devouring it with a ferocity and speed which suggests it would have made precious little difference where on the ‘From Farm to Fork’ journey the poor animal actually was when SF came across it. At the other end of the table, Nugget leaves the obligatory five chips and sets the tone for the week in regard to both ordering and consumption. Nearer the middle, Silent Assassin loses a tooth but no more marks as he clears his plate despite having to ‘gum’ his goujons. ‘It’s an incisor,’ announces Swan, but no-one listens.

Back to the Diary Room (131), where the divisional allocations for the JFL are announced before Saturday journals are completed and initial room inspections undertaken. Henrietta, Predator, Machine & AD9 are in the Premiership, B-Day, Swan, AD1 and Claude find themselves in the Championship, while Silent Assassin, Super CC and Fivechips make up the Pig Farmers Reserve League Division Seven. Only Fivechips isn’t disappointed.

In the annual, IPL-style Coaches’ Auction, Predator is eventually bought by Coach Beardsell to become the cheapest-ever, most-expensive-player in Jersey history at £9.50, while the same coach invests £7.50 in Championship hopeful AD1 and wastes his last £3.00 on Fivechips,

qualifying his decision by claiming: ‘I expect nothing, so whatever I actually get will be a bonus.’ Only time will tell whether ‘bonus’ is an actual thing. Coach Wilson goes for two Premiership stars – Henrietta for £7.00 and AD9 at £5.50, together with Swan (Championship) and the Silent Assassin (PFRLD7), while Team Bob comprises The Machine at a bargain £5.00, B-Day & Claude at £3.50 & £3.00 respectively and Super CC for £4.50.

The first-night room inspections see people struggling to keep up with the new inspector’s more stringent standards, with 133 (The Machine and the Swan) suffering the most in scoring only five out of ten. 130 head the inaugural table with eight, while 128 & 132 each return a seven. 131 discover the initial downside of being a three and accumulate a meagre 6.5, with Henrietta’s area of the trio’s living space seemingly the biggest of several key issues.

Words of the day are discomforting and minimal. The first might refer to the after-effects of a cold sea, the second to any number of Saturday things.

Early kick-off tomorrow – always good to get one of them out of the way on the first morning.

Sunday

Sunday dawns bright and blue and early. The Machine is still asleep as the curtains are opened, the Silent Assassin emerges from the covers with a blue head-covering resembling a very bright chef’s hat sitting atop his mop, while AD9 and Fivechips are already up, washed, dressed and raring to go.

There is fruit juice and cereal, mountains of toast and a choice of as-much-as-you-want from the items on the cooked breakfast menu. AD1 begins a week-long love affair with tomatoes, The Machine and Silent Assassin eat the first of sixteen breakfast sausages each, while AD9 plumps for egg & beans, which is a bit of a worry, even at this early stage. Fivechips meanwhile, starts as he means to go on, by forcing down a cornflake and a half slice of toast.

We’re on Pitch 2 at the FB Fields, so called due to their bequest to the people of Jersey by Florence Boot of Boots Chemists, where we’re up against our 24/25 nemesis, Newbury A. We start well, however and good work down the right from Swan releases Claude who pulls the ball back for Super CC to net our opening goal of the week. We might have extended our lead before half-time and again early in the second period, but it’s not until seven minutes from time that we add a second, Fivechips releasing AD1 for a composed finish. A giveaway goal barely two minutes later gives Newbury a sniff, but we hold on, much to Coach Beardsell’s relief, to grab an opening day victory.

Despite the invention of the wheel in recent times, it appears the fork has had no such breakthrough in certain areas of the city, but a quick lesson in the attributes of the prong pays immediate dividends and we’re up and running in regard to culinary etiquette by the time lunchtime draws to a close.

Today’s afternoon destination is Greve de Lecq, a picture-postcard bay in the north-west of the island and therefore largely sheltered from the sea breezes that attack the south and west coasts around this time of year. It’s a wave-jumping, rock climbing, beach-racing, stream-fording, canyon-exploring, croc-floating, ice cream-eating sort of afternoon. The cross-stream

beach race is won by Fivechips, largely because Coach Beardsell initially lifts the trophy out of B-Day’s reach and AD9 and Not-so-Super CC are disqualified for cheating. Fivechips proudly lifts the polystyrene coffee cup aloft to absolutely no acclaim at all, while B-Day’s facial expression silently questions the integrity of the official adjudicator.

Swan, AD1, Predator, Henrietta, B-Day and Not-so-Super CC display clear agility as the rock scrambling part of the afternoon gets underway, while AD9, Claude and Fivechips show a good degree of grit in completing the various routes despite this type of activity not being anywhere near the top of their immediate ‘To do’ list. The Silent Assassin and Machine meanwhile, display the proverbial mantra that discretion is often the better part of valour and spend the afternoon at ground level, wandering around the sandy indents and copious rockpools, while finding a dead shoe in the process.

Roast beef is the main dinner option, with several people now indulging in ‘proper’ food, with Fivechips finishing a meal for the first time in nearly eleven years, much to the astonishment of all those around him. But the main talking point of the evening is the St Albans’ mealtime garb. Last night they wore very clean-looking white tops, at lunchtime they were in bright green and now they’re clothed in denim blue. Even Plymouth in their clothing pomp of 2016-19, with their seven colours in seven days, didn’t come anywhere near matching this degree of clobber swapping.

The onset of the diary session starts with yesterday’s marks – AD1 and B-Day have both made an impressive opening, though AD9’s first-day performance can best be described as underwhelming. Hovel 132 has joined 131 in the ‘Can do Better’ category of room manicuring, while 130 increases its lead despite a disappointing instance of ‘not quite parallel.’ Attitude marks are excellent, while there are 10 x 10s and a 9 for eating.

Words of the Day are regressed and picturesque. One is to do with Greve de Lecq, the other is a description of HHH (Henry Hill’s heading). He vows to swap the words over by the end of the week.

Someone queries why Super CC’s ‘Marianne’ moniker has been dropped, so it’s immediately reinstated when he says he likes it. For anyone not in the know about this sort of thing, the name emanates from him sleeping in a motorcycle-type head covering made famous in the 1968 film, ‘Girl on a Motorcycle’ starring Marianne Faithfull, while on the London tour. With one thing leading to another, Coach Beardsell gives us a rendition of the 1972 Van der Valk theme tune, before producing a picture of VDV himself. With it bearing a striking resemblance to our esteemed captain, albeit with permed hair and a 40-year age difference, Henrietta is no more and ‘Barry’ is born. Strange times indeed.

Monday

Claude has locked his ‘overflow’ money in 128’s room safe and forgotten the combination. Clearly, he feels the Silent Assassin’s nefarious activities go way beyond using a long-range sniper rifle and silencer. Full of almost genuine sympathy, the coaches organise an immediate whip-round and collect nine pence and one and a half jelly babies from the benevolent section of the hotel, the red one having been neatly decapitated (probably by the resident assassin).

Claude is not amused and mooches down to breakfast, where there’s still no hot milk for Marianne’s Rice Krispies, so he’s taken to eating them dry.

The B Team van won’t start, so Bruce Forsyth Foran borrows ours before returning it in time for our five-minute jaunt to FB Fields, where Wokingham await. King Pat is there, too – he’s organised every festival since the event began 51 years ago and is one of those truly inspiring people you meet from time to time in your life (if you’re lucky).

We battle tremendously hard before going down to a single Wokingham goal scored shortly after half-time. All the evening’s match marks will be solid, with AD1 standing out after making several fine saves and an excellent one.

At 1.24pm, Marianne loses an eating mark for inexplicably leaving his bread, though the most bizarre lunchtime moment arrives soon afterwards, when Fivechips announces that he’s going to win the Jersey Pig Farmers League. There’s a stunned, five-minute silence, with even the now yellow-shirted St Albans horde desperately trying to work out the logic behind this ludicrous statement, before The Machine restarts his metronomic cut-prong-chew-swallow mealtime action, Predator attacks a sausage with a ferocity that sees it devoured in 4.7 seconds flat and normality of some description finally returns to the Norfolk Hotel restaurant.

We’re off west again this afternoon and a walk along the causeway to the lighthouse at La Corbiere. The waves of the North Atlantic Ocean beat into the rocky headland, the next land due west being the United States of America (or whatever it’s now called), nearly four thousand miles away.

The return to the bus is delayed by another ‘Follow my Leader’ jaunt over the rocks, with all eleven players now involved in the expedition. There are a few scrambles, a couple of gullies and some water-hopping before we re-emerge on the access road, where the endeavours of all are rewarded with some real Jersey ice cream from the green-painted van that still loiters there. The continuing presence of the van and its owner comes as a slight surprise to a couple of the coaches, as this self-same cone-filler was subjected to a visit from and one-way conversation with Andrew Bruce Forsyth Foran three hundred-odd days ago and genuinely considered permanently shutting up shop (or worse) as a result. Great that he’s still here, still smiling and still chatting, despite the mental scarring that’s no doubt present in places the general public can only imagine.

With ten ice creams finished (Marianne’s has popped out of the cone and rolled down the hill), we get back in the bus for the ten-minute ride to Les Quennevais Sports Centre where there’s a nice little swimming pool that very few people know about. The eight happy locals who are relaxing in the water are gone within five minutes of our arrival, so there’s plenty of room for a game of GPSFA water polo, the rules of which seem to bear little resemblance to the real rules of the sport.

It’s roast pork with mash, sweetcorn and cabbage for dinner – a bit of an odd combination, but finished off in its entirety by the seven who plump for the proper food. Only one person loses eating marks, due to the five chips remaining on his plate. His aspirations of lifting the PFL title have suffered a bit of a blow, but the dream lives on for a few more hours at least.

Coach Beardsell hosts a Q & A about his accident in the Diary Room, though Barry is noticeably horrified when the practical session kicks in and the prosthetic limb is removed. ‘I’ll show you some post-op photos later in the week,’ concludes SB. ‘Yes!’ says Predator. ‘Urrrgh!’ says everyone else.

Today’s WOTD are fraud and spectacular. SB says he felt like the former in his post-op clinic visits, as there were so many people worse off than him. A good lesson to learn if ever we start to feel a bit sorry for ourselves, either this week or at any time in the future. The post-op photos, he adds, are spectacular. Or maybe he’s referring to the lighthouse on its rocky headland, gazing out across an endless sea.

Mother and Father Swan have recently arrived on the island, so JS becomes ‘Cygnet’, while Claude becomes ‘George’ due to his safe issues, George Reynolds being the footballing safecracker who once owned Darlington FC. In other DREAM-mark news, B-Day, Barrie & Marianne are engaged in a lively debate as to who is to blame for the first lavatorial indiscretion to be identified by TRRI (The Real Room Inspector), which is one of the reasons why 131 loses 50% of its marks, though they are still 0.5 ahead of 133 (Cygnet & Machine) at the end of Day Three.

Tuesday

It’s our second – and thankfully, last – early kick-off of the week, but most of the team are already up and nearly ready at the 8.15 rooster call. When the room doors are opened, AD1 & Predator are involved in some frenetic teeth cleaning, while AD9 & Fivechips are bag-packing for some strange reason – maybe they think it’s already Saturday. Barry, Marianne & B-Day are sitting in a circle having either a pow-wow or a séance in the middle of the floor in 131, though George and the Assassin in 128 are acting normally, sitting on the bed watching TV. Also watching their television are The Machine & Cygnet, though they haven’t moved at all and are still lying in their man caves, showing little interest at all in doing anything else.

‘I still can’t work out the combination,’ laments George, as we sidle down to breakfast where, on three separate occasions, Cygnet gives people his ultra-threatening, Fu Manchu stare. Or, more precisely, he gives it to one of the coaches who, he thinks, has made a derogatory comment or six about him while eating his poached eggs. He’s not wrong.

On finishing their various breakfasts, B-Day, Machine, Assassin and Cygnet build the first tabletop Towers of Hanoi / Pagodas, using sachets of marmalade, jam & butter, a practice that’s mirrored by several others during the next few morning meals. This is practical engineering at its finest, though the need for the coaches to spread things on their toast during the construction period doesn’t seem to have been factored into their project planning.

Our poorest performance of the week sees us go down 1-2 to Jersey A, the gory details of which have no place in an upbeat memoir such as this. In ten hours’ time, the match marks will all come out at between 4 and 5.5, with 6 being average, while a plethora of ‘Attitude’ points will be lost post-match due to, amongst other aberrations: parental hugging (Barry), sibling hugging (George), mental hugging – circumstantial evidence only (B-Day), prolonged massaging (Assassin) and cheek-planting (Machine).

It’s a murky afternoon with a spot or two of rain in the air, so we head into town for a bit of retail therapy as we attempt to slide the events of the morning into the chamber of our brains that forgets everything that happens between 10.00 and 12.00 on any particular day.

Money is distributed at the bottom of St Helier’s pedestrianised central thoroughfare, which is split into three pretty equal parts. Given a set amount of time in each third, the establishments visited include WHS, Toys R Us, JD Sports, Sports Direct and a nice little gift shop near the top of the street.

By the time we’re finished, there’s an interesting collection of balls, several sets of referees’ red & yellow cards that will produce a fair few laughs as the week goes on, a half-price dartboard that Fivechips is told he can’t buy as he’s under 18, a number of postcards that will be used as presents (it’s the thought that counts – and the thought is, I can buy four for a pound, leaving £49 for myself) and a number of sticks of Jersey rock. AD1 invests in a set of wooden kitchen measures ‘Because my mum likes cooking’ and presents them to her immediately as his family attempts to walk past us without him seeing. By the time we get back to the Norfolk, several of the presents have either been half-eaten or fully consumed and the remainder are deposited in Room 129 for safe keeping – the alternative would have been for George to keep them in his safe, an idea that was disregarded immediately as people said they wanted to see their purchases again, and preferably before the week is out.

AD9 however, has refrained from contributing too much to the Jersey economy and spent much of the afternoon loitering around the finance sector. After spending profusely (for him), he’s still got £43 left in his wallet and is now considering indulging in an off-shore investment or three. While Fivechips is unlikely to become World Darts Champion any time soon, AD9’s well on the way to becoming a pretty rich man. Be nice to him, everyone.

The troupe has five hotel minutes to source eleven lots of swimming kit, with only Predator forgetting his trunks, so he finishes up going in the secret pool in his leisure shorts and using a hair dryer to ensure they’re suitable for travelling back on the bus afterwards.

St Albans appear in their fifth different dinner-time apparel in four days, which this time around is best described as ‘mixed casual’. Roast lamb is the main choice today, but Marianne has a bit of a lyonnaise potatoes disaster to add to his bread-leaving yesterday and loses his third point in four days. He won’t leave a single thing in the next four days, but the damage has been done, leaving the road to the Championship silverware out of his hands. With only one point dropped to date, it’s the Assassin’s title to lose.

The Words of the Day are lethargic (the football) and fastidiously (the attention to detail paid to tidying the rooms, which are far better today than yesterday). Attitude point deductions include Machine, for placing his fork in his soup and B-Day/Cygnet, for making repeated sheep noises in the bus. Otherwise, post-match apart, the flock is doing well.

Wednesday

The first of three late kick-offs means we have time to sign sponsors’ postcards and stick them in the big red box before attacking breakfast with a good degree of gusto. Daily choices remain the same as they were on Sunday, apart from AD1, who’s having a day off from Solanum

lycopersicum, or tomatoes as they’re known to the common man. On finishing his egg, bacon and sausage, Predator decides to remove a sachet from the middle of the nearest pagoda and immediately loses an attitude point. It might become minus two if, ‘It was worth it,’ is deemed a particularly unsportsmanlike comment.

As with the Wokingham game, we battle tremendously hard against an athletic Hackney side, only to be undone by two goals in the final five minutes. We’re disappointed, but really pleased with the commitment and attitude shown. With the games coming on a daily basis, Jersey is often about momentum – a winning run usually leads to more wins, while a losing run can be hard to break, which is what we’re finding now. Frustratingly, if we’d displayed the same energy and desire yesterday against Jersey that we have against Wokingham and Hackney, we have little doubt we’d have won that game, but hey, ho, on we go.

And on to the Amaizin Adventure Park, it is. Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s anything but, though the kids think it’s great as they can charge around, climb, slide, ride, get wet, be on their own and be together, often all at the same time. Both teams are enjoying the afternoon as one, though most of it, shoehorned between the above activities, seems to revolve around playing football in the designated area at the end of the complex.

Bruce Forsyth Foran, as happens every year, has attached himself to the team achieving the better results, and spends much of the afternoon singing, ‘Four in a Row,’ following the Bs excellent win over St Albans Yellows this morning, to add to their earlier successes v Jersey Whites, St Albans Blues and Newbury Greens. He also strikes up a conversation with two well to do ladies ‘of an age’, who find it difficult to muster the acceleration to run away and as such are subjected to twenty minutes of comments such as: ‘You’ve gotta laugh,’ (they aren’t), ‘It’s great weather,’ (it isn’t) and ‘You’ll have to come and watch MY team play,’ (they won’t). In the end, the taller one with the red shawl and feathered hat dissolves into a coughing fit and is instantly led away by her desperate friend ‘To get her medication.’

Lee has run a midweek Super 6 competition in which people have to predict six football scores/results and AD9 is presented with an Easter Egg as the overall winner with twelve points – an impressive effort. One of the A team coaches, who shall remain nameless, receives a consolation prize for coming last with two. Bad times.

St Albans have hit the wall. Their declining results have coincided with a similar decline in mealtime standards and after adorning the restaurant with five different outfits in four days, they have now reverted to wearing ‘civvies’ at both lunch and dinner. Peasants.

There are a few pages in the diaries set aside for drawings of ‘Things I Have Seen or Done on Tour’, where people who’ve completed their written offerings can sketch whatever they like. The quality of artistry is varied – there are some good illustrators, there are some average illustrators and there is Machine. We have a castle that looks like a tree, a plane that looks like a beetle, a beach that looks like a quilt and a swimming pool that looks like a Spirograph which has helix-ed out of control. Thankfully, he’s labelled everything, so at least you can put a name to a face, so to speak.

With accusations being punishable by the immediate loss of an attitude point, people have taken to inserting ‘I believe….’ before any reference to the actions of others in an attempt to incriminate without numerical retribution. There are several references to happenings at the Adventure Park and several to a recurrence of ovine sounds on the bus, but apart from George, B-Day and Cygnet, most people get away quite lightly. George suffers most and ends the day with five out of ten, a good percentage of his points deduction arising from abandoning his 3-year-old sister in the FB Fields’ car park. Very poor.

Barrie, meanwhile, has lodged an official complaint (with himself) regarding his suggested likeness to a 1980s actor. To compound matters, while all other rooms have maintained yesterday’s impressive standard, 131 has again fallen foul of TRRI’s parallel / perpendicular / lavatorial obsessions, thus losing as many marks as its gained. There’s much work to do to pull this one back. At the other end of the scale, 130 (for the second day running) and 132 (for the third) each score a Bo Derek (Perfect Ten), while 128 grosses 9.5. ‘It was the worker who lost us the half-mark,’ claims George, before prefixing with, ‘I believe.’ However hard they try, cleaners, it seems, can never win.

Today’s special words are brouhaha and nonchalant, two offerings with very different connotations. With the inhabitants of 130 and 132 exhibiting a good degree of nonchalance in regard to their recent successes, there may be a brouhaha or two in 131 if things don’t improve quickly.

Thursday

The Chairman’s been on the phone with the outcome of last night’s board meeting, held on the circular table at the back of the Nepalese Chef, and the news isn’t good. Any more defeats this week and the coaches may not see the season out. At breakfast, Machine follows up his duo of sausages by constructing a butter model of Stonehenge, a place of ancient prayer, amongst other things. And we might just need it.

Thankfully, for the time being, a Cygnet brace and assist for an AD9 strike, all before half-time account for St Albans Blues, so it looks like we’re safe for another 24 hours at least. There’s a moment of controversy just after Cygnet’s opener, when the grammatically-challenged Coach Beardsell refers to the fact that the opposition seem to have ‘less’ players than us. ‘Fewer,’ corrects someone. ‘What?’ says CB. ‘It’s ‘fewer players, not less’ says someone else. ‘Frown,’ says CB’s forehead. ‘Peasant,’ say the correctors.

The second period is delayed for a couple of minutes as there’s a pitch invasion by one of George’s little brothers, who’s clearly still in search of the sister that George abandoned yesterday lunchtime. Mother Swan, clearly pleased with the goings-on in the game, buys everyone an ice cream in the hope that the arbiters will be swayed into giving Cygnet higher than usual attitude marks today. It doesn’t work.

Jersey’s two best-selling postcards depict Corbiere lighthouse, which we visited on Monday afternoon and Mont Orgueil Castle, which suddenly comes into view as we turn the corner just past the ‘Welcome to Gorey’ sign. This is located just beyond the infamous ‘Moving Wall’

that Coach Ed encountered while piloting our minibus at the 2018 festival. He hasn’t been asked back.

The thirteenth century monolith towers over the town and we spend the best part of two hours exploring its battlements, rooms, spiral staircases and interesting oddities. There’s a large, wooden, not-for-the-faint-hearted sculpture of a ‘Wounded Man’, showing the potential injuries inflicted by various weapons in a medieval battle, a well that brings on nursery rhyme tales of historic Gloucester, stocks into which selected players are manacled and a fascinating array of holes in which families of very rare Wall Lizards live. We spend a good fifteen minutes watching them emerge, lie still and survey the world at large before disappearing back into their granite-encased labyrinth.

While everyone superficially impresses with their manners at the beach ice cream van, B-Day, Machine, Predator and George are each fined an attitude point by TRRI, who’s lurking in the shadows, for indulging in ‘Americanisms’: ‘Can I get a….’ instead of, ‘Please may I have a….’ Nobody else notices these aberrations, especially not the vendor, who provides us with a free cone and flake for bringing along his unexpected afternoon bounty.

Beach football, as Sky Sports reporters always say, is all about recruitment and AD1 gets it completely askew as his team of ‘all-stars’ is hammered 6-0 by Team Bob who, after 32 years of playing on sand, gets his squad selection absolutely spot on. We also win the ensuing penalty shootout, due in no small part to the heroics of the Team B goalkeeper and a just-inside-the-post final penalty from Cygnet. There’s a brief stoppage just before the shootout begins due to a large golden labrador plonking itself down in the penalty area, while the game is momentarily halted when the Silent Assassin is silent no more, letting out a belch so loud, the population of Gorey is convinced there’s been an earth tremor on the east coast of the island.

‘Does goats cheese come from cows?’ asked Connor Spackman at Jersey 2008. No, it doesn’t, but the sauce on tonight’s goats cheese starter puts paid to AD1’s hundred per cent Championship record and the goalkeeper’s visibly distressed as he takes an age to chew and swallow his pasta. Thankfully, he doesn’t go down the Kaylum Pargeter route (Jersey 2018 and also on the Thursday evening, when the centre back indulged in a display of Exocet vomiting that struck one of the coaches square in the solar plexus, thus rendering both the coach and himself unfit to take part in that evening’s diary session).

AD9 also has an eating disaster, declaring the cheese omelette ‘too cheesy,’ much as FiveChips did with his Isle of Wight pizza nearly six months ago. Displaying considerably more grit however, is the Assassin, who gets a smoked mackerel bone stuck in his throat, but continues wolfing down his braised steak which eventually dislodges it. In algebraic terms, SAD > 2AD.

Machine’s Lowry-esque drawings again take centre stage in the Diary Room, while four people lose attitude points for the aforementioned ice cream van vocabulary incident. Discombobulated and usurp are the Words of the Day. The first is what Team AD1 felt, having been hammered by Team Bob. And the second is what Team Bob did to Team AD1.

Friday

Judgement day. It’s 9am in Room 131 and Barry’s eyes on his bright green sleeping mask are closed, so he’s probably still in the land of nod. Or maybe his eyes are open and he’s meditating while staring at the back of the cardboard peepers. B-Day’s still fast asleep, while Super Nice Cole Campbell is fully clothed, sitting on the bed and watching TV with the sound turned down so as not to disturb his comatose roommates. They don’t know how lucky they are.

The people in Room 130 (AD9 & Fivechips) stir with the opening of the curtains and the aimless rendition of a tuneless song referring to the fact that it’s raining outside, but 132 (AD1 & Predator) barely move, despite the stimulation being of an identical nature. In 128, George is invisible beneath the covers, while the only reason you know the Assassin is there, is the presence of a bright blue barnacle resting on the pillow. As usual, 133 (Machine & Cygnet) are lying in their pits, watching the television and paying no attention at all to the person suggesting they rise and shine in the next twenty minutes or so.

George emerges in the corridor outside his room with worryingly grey hair, but it’s soon discovered that he’s got some talcum powder or similar mixed in with his mop, rather than having aged prematurely overnight. When the game versus St Albans Yellows starts in a strong wind and freezing rain, he drops to the ground on being half-tackled, but jumps up again as he straightaway remembers Monday morning’s introduction of the ICP (Injury Consequence Policy), which states that should one of the coaches need to come on due to a player being down, the player will come off with immediate effect. Since its implementation, together with the ban on limping, the number of players requiring ‘treatment’ has been reduced by at least 95%. If the NHS were to adopt a similar strategy, waiting lists and A & E queues would lessen to such an extent that you’d be in and out in the time it takes George to open his safe and be reunited with his pocket money. Five days, then.

We go a goal down while playing with the wind, but level right on half-time when Predator blasts home from three inches, following the Silent Assassin’s well-struck free kick. B-Day strikes the post shortly after the break before a fine header puts the Saints 2-1 up, but back we come and FiveChips saves our jobs thanks to a deflected strike with five minutes remaining. ‘You seem to have got the changing room back,’ says the Chairman before adding, ‘so I suppose you can do another year – but don’t mess up again.’ We’ll try not to.

On the other side of the coin, the Bs have staged a terrific fightback from 0-2 and 1-3 down to draw 3-3 with Jersey in their final fixture to complete an unbeaten week, the first GPSFA B squad to do this and only the sixth occasion overall for one of our sides. ‘Ten years for them both,’ enthuses the Chairman, who’s hopefully referring to a new contract offer rather than a period in the slammer. ‘That’ll see me into middle age,’ thinks Coach Harris. ‘That’s see me past a hundred,’ ponders Coach Wixey. Both sign immediately.

We’re straight back in the bus, but have to wait five minutes for George to return after searching the car park for his still-lost sister. So many people are in their respective showers within two minutes of returning to the hotel that the water goes cold halfway through in Room 129. Not to worry, we go into lunch with circulation partly restored, only for NH to leave 15 chips after eating his hundredth nugget of the week. ‘That’s okay,’ he says, ‘it’s a multiple of

5,’ leaving several people shaking their heads as they haven’t the faintest idea what he’s on about.

It’s a lazy afternoon back at Quennevais as we discover Newbury are already there and that the secret pool isn’t quite as secret as we thought it might be. Predator isn’t buzzing anywhere near as much as he was last Saturday – in fact he’s doing a pretty good impression of a dead bee as the all-important Southern Premier (South) results come in to the complete disinterest of 99% of the people in the leisure centre café.

We return to pack cases and take part in Coach Beardsell’s football quiz which is jointly won by Room 130 (Fivechips & AD9) and 128 (Assassin & George). The quizmaster, however, fails an assessment of his own, referring to ‘less marks’ in the summing up. ‘Fewer,’ corrects someone. ‘What?’ says CB. ‘It’s ‘fewer marks, not less’ says someone else. ‘Frown,’ says CB’s forehead. ‘Peasant,’ say the correctors.

It’s the Presentation Dinner this evening and the hotel restaurant welcomes the Jersey players, the festival referees and a trio of dignitaries, including King Pat himself. Certificates are presented, a few words spoken and 63.36% of the A Squad choose and eat the grilled cod in herb butter, which is a very impressive effort. Thankfully, there are no bone dramas this evening, though AD9 has a pea (as opposed to pee) disaster and loses another eating point. Like Arsenal, he started strongly, but faded quickly when times got hard.

Perpendicular and scrumptious are the tour’s final special words, which refer to what was missing from too many things in 131 and, for some people, the peas.

Saturday

It’s 7.40am and the breakfast table is largely silent. There are no pagodas or towers or models of ancient stone circles, only discreet munching and quiet reflection. We’ve had a whip-round that comes to considerably more than George’s nine pence and 1.5 jelly babies, for our popular waiter, Isaac, and there’s a nice photo taken of both squads and hotel staff.

A swift final inspection sees Room 130 lose a room mark due to the (empty) Easter egg carton from AD9’s Super 6 victory earlier in the week being discovered lurking in the bottom drawer, while 128’s safe door hangs tantalisingly open. It’s taken a while.

B-Day gets through a whole selection of frowns after again being identified for a security search at Jersey airport, while DC’s highly expensive roll of tape is seized by a narrow-eyed official and unceremoniously dropped in a nearby bin. ‘You look like a Silent Assassin,’ he says, as if to justify his actions. ‘But you can buy four times as many rolls for half the price at your local B & Q,’ he adds by way of consolation.

There are few other dramas before we board the plane, save for Bruce Forsyth Foran in the Departure Lounge, accosting an elderly couple and their daughter, each of whom is displaying clear signs that they’ve had a great holiday overseas, but are now desperate to get home. ‘Southampton…,’ begins Bruce, alongside his trademark chortle, at which point the parents reply in unison: ‘Not today, mate, we’re staying for another week,’ before immediately

disappearing, the daughter hot on their heels, out of the door they’d walked through barely five minutes previously. ‘What’s going on?’ questions Bruce. ‘Some people….’

The plane stutters a few times before take-off, a situation that’s resolved when the air hostess repositions the B Team coaches and Romeo at the opposite end of the plane to the baggage hold in order to redistribute the weight. It also stutters a few times during its two-minute level-out, a situation that unnerves George for a moment as a man bearing a striking resemblance to the pilot saunters down the aisle. Fivechips also displays a frown or three when someone turns round and asks him if the propeller on his side of the plane is still working. ‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘That’s good,’ replies the perp, ‘because this one isn’t.’

There are all the usual questions as we divert from the Route de Longlevens along Eastern Avenue to be dropped off in Derby Road, before traipsing down the alley to the Great Western and the final event of a brilliant week.

AD1, Barrie & Fivechips occupy places 1-3 in the Diary awards, but B-Day and Cygnet also qualify for Mini Eggs due to the overall quality of the journals being so good. 130 (AD9 & Fivechips) unsurprisingly win the room prize with a display of tidiness that wouldn’t look out of place at The Ritz, while 132 (AD1 & Predator) surprisingly finish second and the Safecrackers in 128 take third place. The Fearsome Threesome in 131 win the Travelodge Award for finishing last.

Ten of the eaters were very good, but Barrie, Predator and Machine finished as Premiership winners after AD9’s late faded-out. George and B-Day ended the week joint top of the Championship, with Alex (goats cheese sauce) and Cygnet (first-day burger) almost excellent. The Silent Assassin topped the Pig Farmers Reserve League Division Seven with a very impressive 69 out of 70, while Marianne’s issues with bread and peas cost him dearly. Only Fivechips was not in the hunt, despite his proclamations that he was going to win the PFL. His 58 marks were almost entirely gained from toast and nuggets and the fact that he started sprouting feathers on Thursday afternoon (a fact he only mentioned to people he thought wouldn’t say anything) will come as no surprise to anyone at all.

Attitude marks were very good, as one would expect from such a nice group of people. Coach Wilson and Pathfinder had to dig deep to find many reasons to deduct points, but it was always fun when they did. The match scores were the closest in living memory, with only five points separating everyone, with only a point and a half between the top three overall and Predator edging out Fivechips and AD1 by the narrowest of margins.

It’s been 173 hours from departure to return, and what an eight days it’s been. The games will disappear from the memory first, followed by the marks, the stats and the results. But what we’ll always remember is the people, the place and the experience of Easter 2025. As the American poet, Maya Angelou, once famously wrote: ‘They won’t remember what you said and they won’t remember what you did, but they’ll never, ever forget how you made them feel.’

‘Who won Jersey?’ asks the landlady, as people begin to head home for a bit of much-needed shut-eye.

‘Everyone,’ replies Coach Beardsell. ‘Absolutely everyone.’

Oscar Wilde once said: ‘Memories are special moments that tell our story. Once lived, forever remembered.’ He might have been thinking about Jersey 2025.

Happy days

Acknowledgements All the Gloucester coaches and players for making Jersey 2025 the fun that it was and particularly Andrew (Bruce Forsyth) Foran for (begrudgingly) continuing to be the persona non grata of the annual Jersey resume. Of all the great signings….

All the Gloucester parents, grandparents, friends & families, for allowing it all to happen and each of our fabulous sponsors and supporters for ensuring that it did.

King Pat Cullinane of Jersey for his 49 years of fantastic organisation of this amazing event. A man of high principle and unbridled enthusiasm, rarely seen and seldom heard, but always there. In the (almost) immortal words of Sir Christopher Wren: ‘If you want a memorial to me, look around the FB Fields.’

The managers, coaches and helpers of all the teams involved – the foot soldiers who make it all happen. We love the company, the banter and the proverbial craic. Oh, and Phil & John who return year after year from the frozen north and Elias of Fulham from a bit closer to home. You probably won’t read this, but thanks, anyway.

And finally, to Mrs (Stewart) Ratcliffe. I hope you enjoy this memoir as much as you’ve enjoyed the tales of previous trips. I know we all loved being a small part of it. Carpe Diem