For all you who didn’t make it on tour this year, here’s a few snippets to whet your appetite and make sure you tell your loved ones now that you won’t be at home next Easter.

I’m not being funny like, but I reckon what goes on tour stays on tour.....or so you thought!

The mayhem started on Thursday afternoon when the first wave of Kettering tourers descended on Weymouth for a weekend of exhibition hockey (yeah right), trips to M&S and the compulsory Sunday afternoon in the Black Dog.

An early start on Friday and amazingly everyone made breakfast. The matches started at 9.30am and we won them all in fine style, but we couldn’t have done it without tour mascot and team Space hopper ‘Fernando’ - Bruss leave him alone!

Mental note #1: When playing hockey, put on your sports bra before running around.

Friday night and some strange transformations. Annie G disappeared for 20 seconds and returned as the Cat Burglar. Sideshow Mel did her bit for Age Concern, Claire ‘Team Wit’ Panter had chunky WKD issues and a big hand to Cheryl for persuading someone to support Arsenal!

Saturday arrived and not quite so many people made breakfast. Saturday heralded the playing debuts of the ‘ladies wot lunch’ and despite some intensive heckling from the sideline we still managed to beat the opposition. Later in the afternoon and following some impromptu circling, Lizi and Claire found themselves in Red Square hell and PieFred discovered, much to the non-amazement of the entire world, that her favourite letter was ‘C’.

Our next match was to be an elite exhibition of Champagne hockey on the astropitch against a ‘serious’ team of 12 and 55 year olds who couldn’t figure out we all had number 50 on our shirts. A special mention at this point for Lizi ‘how many?’ Munro who had a little trouble finding the goal and Sideshow Mel who’s feet seemed to forget that they were no longer playing on grass.

Mental mote #2: Beer Boys - When getting a round in, don’t forget yourself.

After several thousand renditions of ‘The Old Grey Man’, ‘I’m a lumberjack’, and a couple of random Cat Burgling incidents, we made our way to the Pavilion for a night of dancing and drinking (how many was it Chris?). Laura/Moira had a bit of trouble remembering if she was a saint or a sinner, so enlisted the help of a Plumbers mate, and Team Wit managed to pick on the only one with a limp!

It is at this point we should all pay homage to the ‘All nighters’. The elite group of athletes consisting of Helen Gump, Sinner, Team Wit, Chairman Bibs + Biblet, Grandad Percy, Dad, Son and Son’s special friend, decided that the only way they were ever going to make breakfast at 8.30am was to not bother going to bed. It’s a little known fact that there’s nothing more refreshing than a bracing walk in the rain to have Ice-cream and Bacardi Breezer on the beach at 6.00am! A fine, if somewhat misguided, effort was made by PieFred who so very nearly made it to breakfast, but accidentally lost 3 hours asleep in a toilet. Never known a night like it, well done Fred!

Mental note #3: Remember to go to bed at some point.

Sunday - no matches - hooray! So following with tradition we made our way to the Black Dog for a post night-out beer, thank God we had Michelle ‘serious drinker’ Tanser with us! Eventually we got back into the drinking swing and played one too many rounds of Bunnies, Mutant-Bunnies in Bruss’s case, before the Cat Burglar impressively transformed into the Bunny Burglar. Following the ‘beginners’ drinking circle was the ‘elite’ circle but I’m not quite sure why Clap Corner joined in that one?

Great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Mo Five-O who did particularly well in her tour challenge of getting 50 drinks bought for her. After a slow start she soon picked up the pace and put everyone else to shame by getting so many bought for her she lost count. Nice one Mo!

Monday morning and the last day of tour - boo. The intrepid tourers turned up at the pitches to play their last match of the weekend but having lost the will to live I have no idea if we won or lost. The highlights of the day involved a prehistoric hockey stick (my Mum has one just like it) which got burgled in the middle of the game when the opposition were doing headstands and a great big chocolate birthday cake with a footprint in it looking remarkably like Annie G’s!

Mental note #4: Don’t disappear when your lift home is leaving the carpark.

And on that note, here’s to a great tour - Cheers!