GRFC - A Tradition of Touring
A personal view by Jerry Shelton
Given GRFC's great touring tradition, our notable claim to have been the first recorded club in the UK to entertain an overseas touring side is especially significant. The team in question was from France (Paris in fact) found an echo in later years in the club's long association with the ‘COP' Le Mans club and, for me, it was in this particular corner of a foreign field that I cut my touring teeth. The tour was, in those days (1981 in my case), the final act of a long hard season, an opportunity to pit our skills against ‘international' opposition and to have a jolly good time too! Character-building was (and still is) another phrase that comes to mind.
The Le Mans era started in the 1950s (I'm told) and came to a sad end in 1983 (mainly due to a significant decline in the French side's playing strength). This was our last visit in an unbroken 30 year relationship (apart from a reprise in 2002 to celebrate COP's 50th anniversary). After a touring ‘rest' of 2 years, Dave Cox initiated a trip to Portugal and some stiff fixtures against Benfica, a regional select XV from Caxias, and Lisbon University (featuring meetings against several international players along the way). Never mind the results (played 3 lost 3), I said never mind the results, we had a great time and the venture heralded the start of a 13 year unbroken run of annual tours (it also brought Portuguese international Eduardo de Moraes to England, to play at Rectory Field and to drink ‘Ginneese' with us every Saturday). We can stretch our touring run to 23 uninterrupted years, if we allow ourselves a small amount of creative licence. I'm referring, of course, to two stag trips to Newquay (I prefer to call them surf tours), a short-handed non playing, Legion of the Damned foray to Biarritz in 2005, and let's not forget the gentlemen's rugby-based activity holiday to Beziers in 09, with 15 brave souls keeping the dream alive, when the credit crunch downed our plans for a jolly boys train ride to Cambrai. In respect of Newquay, we did play beach rugby, so why not call it a tour? In Biarritz, although just 14 of us, we took to the field, at Stade Jean Dauger, to challenge around 200 local youngsters after the Bayonne Vs Auch premiership game - in full club colours I might add - so that counts. And in Beziers, under the banner of ‘March or Die', Ned made it onto the pitch (well, more a case of being thrown over the security fencing) so that also makes it a rugby tour. So that's that.
There have been some memorable exploits on foreign soil, some performances of great character and bravery: all-round heroics from the guys in black and white. And some games of rugby too. Yes, it's the off pitch events that last longest in the memory. I could write several volumes about this game or that. For example, the night Martin Stoves saved my life with the exocet-style flying head butt to neutralise the biggest 2nd row I've ever seen, as we took on Amsterdam under lights (a win for us). Then there was the 30 man punch up in a game billed as Gravesend Vs Rouen 2nds, and ended up as a violent skirmish with the Normandy Select XV (complete with Stefan Constantin, the one time Romanian international - coincidentally, a guy we'd encountered when GRFC lost narrowly to visiting Bucharest club side and Romanian champions Gravita Rosie back in the 1980s). The Normandy result was 70 points to them and only 5 points + the best knock out punch in living memory, to us (nice uppercut Bobjit). We won't mention the fixture with Midleton in the Irish Republic which saw a late Danny Gorman tackle bring about the full retribution of several touch line mums brandishing quite heavy handbags and proclaiming the ginger one as a dirty f****** eejit. Also best to forget the feast of open running 7s rugby on a cool Isle of Man afternoon, with knee deep mud and horizontal rain that would have cut in half the man who dared to stand face into it. And I won't write about the Dutch tournament win (teams from 12 different countries) with victory in the final over a Belgian Army side, where the match ball was parachuted in from a cloudless blue sky. No, let's forget the rugby, let's remember the other stuff.
The person I have to thank (blame?) for catching the tour bug is one Peter Fitzell. It was 1981. "Do you want to go to Le Mans Jerry?" was the question. "Can't afford it" was the response. Then came "That's not what I said. Do you want to go on tour Jerry, yes or no?" Of course I wanted to tour, but had he not heard my plea of poverty? Was the man stupid? Well, he went on to explain, someone's only gone and sponsored me haven't they? Wow! Did people really do that? Great, thanks very much, what time is the meet?
I got right into the tour thing straight away. Yes I sussed it. Touring was an endless round of drinking, eating, receptions and speeches, (in that order), staying up all night ricocheting around the bars of the town centre, with only the occasional interruption of having to pull on our kit in order to tussle with 15 garlic-smelling, sweaty Frenchmen, who never seemed happier than when butting, punching or kicking an Englishman. To underpin this, another tactic the French employed was to find their opposite number at the eve of match barbeque (more speeches, drinking etc) and ply him with as much red wine and Pastis as possible (and there was an endless supply) in the hope that this would damage his performance on the morrow. It was at one such gathering that Messrs Fitzell, Frame & Rushforth spontaneously improvised an entertainment entitled ‘Birth of a Gravesend Rugby Player'. I'll spare you the details dear reader, except to say the birth scene itself was a pretty gory affair with plenty of red wine being thrown around to emulate the poor ‘mother's' blood (a haemorrhage it would seem), and the crisp white table clothes doubling up as bed linen. These fine thespians surpassed themselves at a subsequent gathering, when all they needed was a stage, a set of curtains, and a step ladder to muster up the tallest rugby player I'd ever seen, with only his head visible, ascending from floor to ceiling with the steps obscured behind the curtains. You had to be there! As a postscript to the maternity story, the scene was marvellously re-enacted by, I recall, Fitzell House, on the school outing to Holland in 07. Reckon they're still washing the ketchup off the ceiling in the Oemoemenoe club house. Well done boys, take a housepoint. Make that two.
In Dublin in 1996, a batch of us returning to the hotel at around 2am decided to ‘slip into something more comfortable' before returning to the bar for nightcaps. The pyjamas, night-shirts and dressing gowns we had all packed (it was in the tour instructions so everyone unquestioningly complied) was the comfortable attire in question. This completely bemused the night porter, but didn't stop him accepting our orders for drinks various - from Port to Guinness. What baffled him and his colleagues further was what happened next. In our eagerness to make for our bedrooms to gather together our selection of nightwear, we significantly overloaded the lift, to the point where it stalled between floors, requiring an engineer to be called. We stayed calm, the repairman came and set to work, and the night manager peered through a narrow opening into the stricken lift offering reassurances of our imminent rescue. At this point he was almost knocked off his feet by an anxious Paul Littlejohn who arrived breathlessly at the appropriate landing to call down to us - in limbo somewhere in the lift shaft - "bad news guys". Amidst the rising concern among the hotel staff (were we all going to die?) Paul delivered his bombshell. "They've got no Port left!" Was that it? "We'll have Baileys then" came the response from somewhere between floors 3 and 4. Panic over. The lift restored to working order, we retired to the bar to consume the Baileys. The look on the lift engineer's face stays with me.
Prague will best be remembered for a number of things. Having been used to pretty spartan accommodation, we were stunned to find ourselves in one of the city's most opulent hotels, complete with pool, sauna, squash and tenpin bowling facilities. A little on the outskirts, we had to invest around 15p each on underground train tickets every time we entered ‘Invalidovna' station for the 15 minute ride to the city centre. Forty odd guys (and I mean odd) travelling on public transport always has comedic potential, but these particular amenities presented a fine opportunity for a spectacular stunt from one Ned Harding (don't try this at home kids). Returning from a nightclub at 5am, Ned decided to take route 1 to the underground platform. Instead of standing conventionally on the escalator, he slid down the ‘central reservation' between the staircases (we've all fancied trying this at some time, go on admit it). Not that spectacular you might be thinking, until you consider the distance and angle of descent - both twice or three times the magnitude of anything on the London tube. It was only later when we returned to the scene that we realised this feat had resembled a freefall parachute drop, noting the skid marks from Ned's trainers that must have slowed his descent just enough to save his life. Wasn't it also Ned (with co-conspirator Danny Burnett) who streaked in near zero temperatures at the Czech Republic Vs Holland World Cup qualifier (still the only World Cup game most of us have been to) just 2 days earlier? Having had one of our two weekend games cancelled, what luck that we were able to go and join the crowd of several thousands to watch this spectacle. What terrible luck for both international squads that we turned up to watch and proceeded to drink the bar completely dry - including the reserve held back for the players. Shame that. Beast, Boydie, Tony Panter and the other alicadoos went one stage further, forging a new friendship with the Old Bristolians RFC tour party, who were also there. They generously helped the west countrymen to polish off their beer, and then dropped their new found chums as quick as they had found them. Nice touch that.
The journey home from tour is normally a pretty quiet affair. The coach/boat/plane filled with largely ‘toured out' individuals doesn't make for a party atmosphere. The return ferry crossing from Dieppe to Newhaven in 1995 was a notable exception. The crossing coincided with the return from Normandy of D-Day veterans, having been to France to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landings. With the boys from GRFC seated in the bar in matching rugby shirts, throw in 50 members of the ‘Frog Club' (40 something's from Esher returning from a Francophiles outing), 100 French students, a cabaret of dancing girls and the trifling matter of some £750 in beer kitty, and the scene is set for a memorable trip. The antics that went on would fill a whole volume, but my lasting memory is of Danny Burnett and ‘Dippy' Darren Cottrell, supplementing the cabaret chorus line with their own highly stylised version of the can can! The early nervousness of the crew turned to euphoria, to the point where they formed a ‘tunnel of honour' and clapped us ashore, decorated with various Sealink badges and paraphernalia (in Andy Love's case a barmaid's headscarf). Nice!
And so it goes on. Nevil's zip, the Danny Burnett Sealink Tropho incident, the Antwerp American Tan ladies tights debacle, and the redecoration of Coach Des by Marcus Pestlel (name changed to protect he innocent) with stale beer, carrots and the rest, on a winding Madeira mountain road. What, other than a rugby tour, could take you to a peasants' bar on a deserted mountain roadside to drink local fire water and devour monkey nuts, discarding shells ritualistically on the floor? Nothing. What else could take you and your mates to assorted houses and apartments around New York and New Jersey, to live the American Dream and drink beer as strong as Lucozade? Where else could you see Terry Wickham down a bottle of Beaujolais Villages before ‘offering out' half of France for a bit of a tear up? And where else would you see full-blooded jousting and mediaeval debauchery on a warm spring afternoon? Nowhere, I put it to you, other than on a rugby tour. Not just any rugby tour: a Gravesend Rugby Tour!
So, this is my take on what this touring business is really about. Not for me the deadly serious, super-athletic, daily training, tea-total sporting endeavour. For me, it's the silly clothes or bizarre theme (pyjamas, builders' hard hats, Barbie Dolls, Doctors/Scientists, tank tops, The Cheese Ranger). It's about the 4.20am train ‘home' from Amsterdam, serenading the early commuters bound for Schipol, with beers in hand. That's us, not the commuters. It's low moments when, a long way from home and the worse for wear after 3 days and nights partying, a true friend (Jason Bowler is in charge of my personal tour pharmacy) puts his arm around you and administers the required dose of Ibuprofen, Diareze, Gaviscon (a must on Euro fizzy lager, heartburn trips) or perhaps a cool Pastis. It's the look around the changing rooms after a tough final match of the tour, when all there is to do is to ‘finish the job' with one last big night out. No need for words then, everyone's thinking the same. Mind you, last night plans can go awry. In 2005, thanks to industrial action by air traffic controllers, we had two last nights. The official last night followed the usual pattern, but we were entreated to an extension to the tour, albeit consisting of an overnight train across France (Biarritz to Paris), then a metro ride to hook up with Eurostar bound for Calais, and the boat back to Blighty. So what? We're tourists and this is touring. Bring it on. By the way, it wasn't Cherry Brandy. And there was no cockerel.
I've talked about a 23 year run of touring but, to end on a serious note, this great tradition of ours must not be allowed to end there. I'd like to lay down this challenge to the younger guys currently playing - in all teams - and to anyone who cares about rugby's social customs. If you have never toured, come and find out what you're missing. If you have toured already, I don't need to convince you, but I do suggest you get your deposits paid soon for 09/10!
The bugle and red carpet are packed. Mutley has his tea towel, bottle opener, ice, and his army of young barmen ready to attend to your every need. Tarzan is set to transform once more into "Janitor Man". And our yet to be identified tour virgins are waiting in the wings to write their own pages of touring history. Yes, it's all set to start again next spring in France, Malta or Spain. Bournemouth, Holland or Portugal. Or somewhere else. The destination is unimportant; that we set off is essential. The company, as always, is priceless.
And as the coach wends its way back up Donald Biggs Drive after it's all over, chorus with us: The Tour is Dead. Long Live the Tour*.
*By courtesy of Mendez Holidays, a wholly owned subsidiary of Shellfish Tours.
