We’re back and believe it or not despite my best attempts we didn’t loose anyone. I on the other hand lost my coat before we even left Stansted which was extremely foolish given the sub zero temperatures which were on offer in Prague. Luckily I packed a spare fleece for such anomalies or is it I know just how stupid I am?As with previous years it was an awesome weekend and also as with years gone by it was packed with priceless moments, stuff that will go down in PB folk law. Gems that we’ll be saying ‘can you remember when Anthony squeezed lime in his eye for having a potty mouth’ and can you remember ‘Max almost shitting himself in that underground club!’ The Morris Dancer outfits were donned, the quintessential British outfit for any team to travel to Prague in. To get things going we randomly selected a dance master and a man from Del Monte. The Dance Master was Birdy, what this meant for the rest of us was if he started to dance everyone had to dance. For some reason, unbeknown to us all he adopted some sort of tribal chant as he hopped about ringing his bells like a cat with mustard on its arse. It brought about endless hilarity until he decided to dance as I handed over my passport to a slightly bemused check in assistant. Fortunately the check in staff had a sense of humour and saw the funny side of it as they made for a higher vantage point to film us on their mobiles as we merrily minced off to the departure lounge bar.
The other game running in tandem was the Man from Del Monte, it was simple, a number picked at random and that person was the man from Del Monte. What does the man from Del Monte do? He says yes to everything! Jarvis Kezzer Wardrope was the unfortunate victim of this and if my memory serves me correctly he agreed to sign for our Saturday team, he confessed to fancying Glyny Wall, Max’s mum and the messiah Mick Walls wife, controversial! He was also given copious amounts of shots which he gladly said yes to and then, then it went to a dark new level. Rosey found a bell on the floor which had come off his outfit. Rosey conferred with me and said “eat it” I refused but not Kez, he swallowed it in one like Marc Almond at a Petshop Boys gig. He rattled nicely like a goat at Ski Sunday after that! Airport security found it hard to believe what he’d ingested so let him pass through on grounds of insanity. Priceless!
The theme for the weekend was kept top secret and I think it’s fair to say me and Dan out did ourselves this year. The whole weekend had a military theme and on arrival in Prague Staff SGt’s Mckinley and Sterry of PB platoon delivered the rules.
International drinking rules as always; drinking with the clock ie big hands on the right you drink with your right hand and do your forfeits with your left, no pointing, no use of the word drink, no accepting of a drink from hand to hand. In addition to these we added a few of our own rules, I’ll come on to them.
In total the PB platoon contained one Sgt Major, two staff sergeants, two corporal’s one lance corporal seven privates and two prisoners of war, a roll card where given out every morning to decide who had what honours for that day. All high ranking officers had a captain’s style arm band which they adorned at all times (can I have those back lads if you have one, I only seem to have one staff sgt and two corporals come home!) The Sgt major had final say on everything and was in charge, if he said drink, you drunk so to speak because you weren’t allowed to say drink. The two staff sergeants kept order and kept the games flowing ensuring adequate booze was being consumed. One corporal carried the forfeit bag whilst the other carried the funnel. The Lance corporal was the sniper and was officially the only person allowed to take pictures. The privates had no jobs but also had no power and as for the prisoners of war, well they had it rough. They had their own special POW hats, they were also given a spork to eat their dinner with. They were basically bitches for all other soldiers, get the drinks in, order the drinks, get something from the shops, go back to the hostel to get the funnel, if we needed something they did it. I was irked on day one as Steve ‘the crab’ Collins lost one of the hats on the first night out. Subsequently one of the POW’s had to wear a fetching ginger wig instead, something ‘the crab’ looked quite hot in, he reminded me of a young Toya Wilcox.
Other rules included having to address all higher ranking officers by their full title, ie Staff Sgt Mckinley. Also you had to declare to a higher ranking officer where you were at all times, for instance going to the toilet, failure to do this and you were deemed AWOL, go AWOL for any length of time and you could be declared MIA and that was a court marshalling offence. Court Marshal punishments where firing squad (willy whipped with a towel) Entertain the troops (dolled up in a fetching wig and lipstick) or demoted to POW. The crab had to entertain the troops for loosing his hat but by him simply putting on a wig and lipstick in a packed bar was more than enough humiliation for him!
And of course, lets not forget ‘Ambush’ or ‘toy soldiers’ a game that ran the length of the weekend. Each person along with their role card was given a toy soldier at the start of the day. When the Sgt Major shouted “Ambush” we all had to assume the position of our toy soldier. Simple game but hilarious as those without a head on their soldier had to pull their shirt or jumper over their head!! Something Ddddddaaaaarrreeen struggled with and was constantly punished for. Come on, there was always one who has their head bitten off in a pack by your younger sibling! Don’t ask me where the Dddddaaaaarrreeeen came from, it seemed to stick and make us all laugh but not really sure why?! It contributed to Butcher loosing his voice he shouted it so much!
Each forfeit was met with a shot of absinthe a tasty local delicacy which looked like mouthwash but lacked its teeth cleansing properties, more melted them. A forfeit was taken from the forfeit bag on and you marched to perform your duties as marked out in the neatly typed piece of paper. I managed to pull two of the worst whilst in the previously mentioned packed bar. ‘Eat a bag of crisps with no hands’, mildly amusing for everyone else but what brought a rapturous applause was us all watching Danny Andrews, a then POW wander round Prague old town in a ginger wig looking for somewhere that sells crisps! The locals really didn’t get the wig! Later on I pulled ‘wear your boxers on the outside of your clothes for an hour’ luckily I had worn some discreet grey ones and not my Superman pants!
So many more highlights it’s hard to mention them all but it’s safe to say the Hostel won’t be remembered quite so fondly. The 7 bed room containing Ant, Daaaarrrreeeeen, Jas the Brazilian, Butcher, Max, Danny Andrews and Kez (although Kez spent more time in our room) had one working light, no hot water and a spare room containing nothing more than a bed without any sheets. It had tiles outside the door that looked like they had been laid earlier that day as they were still on wet cement and an interesting mini bar outside the room which looked like it had been carved out a the wall with dynamite (see pics). The six bed room with me, the crab, Cinderella Mckinley (yet another early night on tour for Danny, 9pm that’s a record!), ‘Duck arse’ Rosey and Go large Jones was better but not much. We had hot water and heating, but then we had a snore off most nights between Ross and the Crab. Ross’s night time tones developed over the weekend into a deep snore reminiscent of a man who had swallowed a squirrel whilst the Crabs whistled like an old man who wasn’t using his denture glue properly. Most mornings I was also woke by a persistent offending duck getting in our room, well that’s what Rosey told me but we all know ducks don’t smell like that. Suddenly having a double room on your own like Daisy and Wally didn’t seem so stupid!
I haven’t got the time or the enthusiasm to mark all the events but special mention must go to Butcher who yet again nailed the ‘dance off’ in the unlikely location of a sports bar. At what point does a mind think it’s a good idea to lie down and roll down a flight of stairs? Not content with that, then propel yourself onto the hand rail of the same stairs leaving the adoring fans gasping as you just about hang on thus preventing yourself from landing arse first on to a bar table! The mind of an undisputed ‘dance off’ champion that’s what “come on down Jamie Butcher!” *Queue blind date music* I’d love to mention ‘B.B.S’ and his service station semi but this isn’t the right forum to discuss it! You know who you are!
A fantastic weekend, one of the best and funniest we’ve had. I hope the lads involved look back on these times and realise, like I do, that in our somewhat insignificant football careers these times are the best, we’re not multi millionaire footballers who can have whatever we want but you know what for that weekend and with our group of lads, I wouldn’t swap it for anything.
