West London Tour to Durham - 25 to 27 Jan 08

This year's tour to Durham didn't start as planned for a couple of members as they couldn't get served for lack of ID! However the rest of the touring team met in the bar at King's Cross station for a couple of ales (with the obligitory trip to M&S for supplies .. who bought the last bag of carrots?).

The 20:00 train to Durham was probably a little noiser than usual and we did get our first warning from fellow passengers within 45 minutes (is that a record). Tour roles were assigned, entertainment provided in aid of the Lifeboat Sudokos and a legendary game of higher / lower by an inebriated Lou.

We did however manage to arrive in Durham in one piece and were quickly transported to our deluxe travelodge hotel. All but one of the team (no names Julia) then headed to Klute, the second worst nightclub in Europe where we enjoyed a Spice Girls medlay followed by Bewitched. You get the picture. Most touring members made it home without causing a disturbance .... a couple however were caught on CCTV having wheelchair races and complaints were made to the Travelodge who had to refund other disgruntled guests. Oooops!

Sleeping is for loosers (Julia!) and so we were up and out the door at 8.30 for a pleasant walk along the river to the Sports Ground. Bacon sandwiches were enjoyed by all (except those who were in the queue behind Kate Edwards).

The West London Warriers then played Durham 1 whilst the Incredibles beat Durham 2.

The afternoon was spent getting lunch (Zoe tried to win hers thorugh an arm wrestle with a very muscular bar mar .. she lost) and shopping / sleeping

Then the fun began. Let's bowl! Every player wearing their touring hat. Emily W seemed to be hindered by hers (scoring a total of 18!) Whilst Ali Barnes was a bit of a legend with her triple strike. The winning team was led by the Dragon, and featured top individual scorer Liberty Broome, Sparrow Burrows, Ginger Gordon, Rab C Nisbet and Hump the Frog. Others tried their skills with a dancing competition which Moria and Sian lost. It was a sign of things to come ...

We then set off on our bar "crawl" which featured just one bar which we weren't meant to be in. Pints of Smenergy were consumed, whilst playing YeHa and finishing off with a waterfall. We left doing the limbo. Very mature.

Food was next - and the first restaurant complaint was in 5 minutes - we were getting good at this. Andy the waiter sported a balloon hat and to summarise there was lots of noise, food and we spent the night copying one another - just how many grenades, freezes and surfing can you do in 5 minutes. Answer - lots!

We then took over the dancefloor in "loveshack". Grenades didn't go down too well there with the "locals" as some thought it was a real bomb scare "ooops". Plenty of dancing, sweating and entertainment in the "cage". More dancing and at some point Ali eyes caught sight Mr Durham across the dancefloor. The rest as we say is history.

4 hours later we were up again and consuming more bacon ready for a mammoth tournament in sunny weather (had we really travelled north??). Highlights of the tournament included Clare "Biggles" Anderson, the warriors cracking into the jagermister and improving their play a worrying amount, Julia avoiding arrest for GBH having broken some poor girls nose and a team warning for "creeping" .... we'd obviously got bored of freeze meister and warm ups to the hokey cokey. We're sure our recruitment drive to the university graduates will be successful.

MASSIVE thanks to Liberty Broome for impeccable organisation!