Revisiting Tour

Not much in the way of noteworthy matches took place on this day throughout recent years, although the firsts did play out yet another tie with Shiregreen.

I was therefore considering skipping the blog today, but instead, with the sad news that this years tour has been cancelled, I thought it would be good to look back at an old tour report that I wrote back in 2011. I have had to censor and amend some of the less politically correct moments that were originally included.

For those not familiar with the CACC tour, the "tie" relates to the wolly of the day tie which is awarded every night by a fines committee for the most stupid act of the day. The unsightly tie then has to be worn by the wolly for the next 24 hours until it is awarded to somebody else.

Enjoy and hopefully back to revisiting some past Sunday matches tomorrow.

DAY 1 - OSWESTRY

There was an early set-back to the tour when it was discovered that Jimbo had provided a bus with a broken CD player!! Undoing all Roeys hard work in compiling the tour CD! Gramps signalled his intentions of having a good time, turning up to the meet with a large tub of Stork margarine.

The first fixture was at Oswestry who held our match as the main event during their Australia Day. This meant that the likes of Eliot and Jack applied "Aussie" temporary tattoos and spoke in bizarre accents for  2 days.

The match was one of the best of the week as we recovered from 120-7 to knock off something like 210 with an over to spare, Rich top scoring with 75. Si was on 49 before being adjudged LBW by Dan "Biffman" Hemingway, it has yet to agreed whether the right decision was made or not. Jimbo carried on as he left off on his last tour.......with no wickets.

The first night was spent in the Old Bell where Matt and Jack conducted a lengthy fines during which Kev got the tie for selecting a team that included Loz as wicket-keeper, who following his performance was described by the fines committee as "the worst cricketer ever to keep wicket". Despite dropping around 54 catches Loz still claims it was a decent performance as there were no byes.

We decided to have a game of touch the cup in the pub, always leading to a good night! El gave a spirited performance throughout meaning that he had to call it a night early, he was therefore sent back to the hotel, having to be pointed in the correct direction by Chris Bradwell despite the hotel being clearly visible from the pub, but he eventually found his way safely to his room...........to be continued!

DAY 2 - SHIFNAL

Whilst waiting for people to gather in the lobby to depart, Dan came in and announced "No i'm not ok, El has pissed all over my clothes" It turned out that following El's touch the cup performance he unfortunately mistook the wardrobe to be their toilet and pissed in it, managing to avoid his side of it completely and instead soaking some of Dan's stuff. Luckily Kev was aware that the hotel provided a laundry service, unluckily, the form for requesting this service is located at the bottom of the wardrobe, and was therefore drenched in piss. Dan quite rightly stated that he could not hand that in at reception!

The match at Shifnall was a 12oclock start so I dont think we did anything in the morning, just went straight to the game which was being played at their third team pitch, scene of Rexy's famous puddle slide.

I cant remember much about the match except that we won chasing something in the region of 180. Eliot was feeling the strain of his previous nights antics and fielded in a less than impressive fashion to the point where the opposition were cheering whenever he stopped one, and cheering even louder when he misjudged the spin and ran past one!

Matt's previous abuse of Loz's wicket-keeping came back to haunt him as he was selected to keep wicket and struggled, including a run out attempt where he had taken the bails off around 30 seconds before catching the ball.

The tie inevitably went to Eliot and it was agreed that someone would have had to have got themselves arrested in order to take it off him that night!

DAY 3 - MADELEY

Roey and Jimbo got up early Tuesday to try and get the bus radio fixed but informed us that the garage were unable to fix it as they would have to order a part in. I cannot give justice to the scenes of jubilation that took place on the bus when I jokingly pressed the on-button shortly followed by the message "CD Loading" The tour CD was on!

Once again the CACC touring party arrived to lower the standards of the Shropshire Golf Club for a round of pitch and putt. Highlight of the mornings golf  was Woody's hole in one which I didnt see but the celebrations of which echoed around the course, it didnt take long for the news to get to all groups!

We won the match against Madeley despite Si playing for them, taking Jimbo apart and Gramps giving Woody out without facing even though nobody appealed. Jimbo finally celebrated his first wicket on tour, although it was a stumping whilst bowling leg spin.

At fines Dan was awarded the tie for an accumulation of things throughout the day although I cant remember any of them.

DAY 4 - PERKINS

We played tennis in the morning where Dan and I beat Roey and Loz in 3 straights including a comeback from 5-0 down in the third.We all piled into Morrisons for lunch where Dan bought a full belly of pork to tide him over.

We set a target of 185 to Perkins which they knocked off fairly comfortably despite a good spell of bowling from Si in attempt to make up for being caught out first ball of the match after declaring that he always gets runs at Perkins.

Si escaped the tie which was given to Woody for constant showing off about his hole in one, and pinning fines committee member Nick on the shin during knock up.

Wednesday night is club night which is always eventful. El spent the night drinking nothing but Jagerbombs buying two at a time, downing one, holding the other one for ten minutes, downing that, and then getting two more! Amazingly he wasnt sick!

Buzzer also enoyed a few jagers but Woody chose not to as he "does them all the time with work!"

With his confidence high Buzzer was chatting up a girl by telling her that he was training for the Olympics in his role as an Archer.

DAY 5 - WELLINGTON

It wasn't the usual hammering at Wellington but we did lose in the last over as Captain Matt miscalculated his bowling overs and left me with a one over final spell for them to knock the winning runs off. The fielding performance was a tired one with Loz eventually being swapped out of Gully to stop him diving over everything. Si completed the Last Day of Tour performance with a misfield through his legs to allow them the winning single with a ball to spare.

Woody batted but he didnt field as he pulled a calf whilst overreacting to being hit in the thigh. Matt decided to open the bowling to ensure that their first teamer got them off to a flying start. He also incurred a fine by falling for their young scorers trap shouting him the bowlers name when Matt came onto bown despite him having "JOHNSON" on the back of his shirt.

Si was nailed on for the tie until he saved himself by doing me and Jimbo a massive favour by picking up the tie from Wellington which we had forgotten! There were a few contenders but captain shambles secured it late on by smashing a pint glass in the pub, his second breakage of the day.

For some reason we had loads of fines money that had to be spent which lead to an all-night touch the cup session, going all the way through to breakfast at 7am, the staff were very surprised to see us. 

What a great week! 

All 4 clubs have confirmed that we will be welcome back in 2021, when I hope we can make it a tour to remember.