My first year at Worldnet done and dusted, those mornings are very very difficult! Rolling in at stupid o clock then attempting to put on a performance was very difficult! I spent most of the weekend absolutely hanging! Apart from 11pm onwards when it seems a bit of a blur!
Oh and if anyone mentions "headache dancing" ignore them its all vicious lies!
Brilliant weekend as always. Disaster from the start on Friday, Charlton Charlie went to pick up the minibus in Charlton, only to be told he had to drive to Canterbury to get it. Gets there and told the booking was wrong and it should be an extra £100. Coughed up as he had no other option, only to find on the drive back the van had a 60mph limiter on it !
Didn't bother the rest of us, who started supping in The Albany at 11am, and the advance party who had made it to Leeds in time for the 11am opening of Tiger Tiger !
Journey up was eased by the two coolboxes of lager, questionable reading material, and DJ AFKA on the mix (move over Ketman).
Checked in the hotel, shower and straight out. Leeds is surprisingly one of the best places in the UK for a night out, and didn't disappoint. We ended up in the multi-roomed, multi-floored Oceania nightclub, and the 80s room dancefloor become our second home. Dave Storry was swinging his hips so much i thought they might need to be replaced before the football !
A 15-hour drinking session probably wasn't the best prep for a football tournament, nor was buying of Subway's at 3.30am for advance breakfast, but that's how we do it. Some teams go up there for a serious tournament, we go for the laughs and night outs with a bit of footy thrown into the mix.
Despite not one player getting in before 3am, we were up and on the coach at 9am to Leeds Uni, where the tournament is held. Seventy teams competed this year, and its quite a sight seeing the swarm of lads all in their teams kit taking over the place.
We were on the backfoot from the start against Leicester, who had traveled up that morning and were fresh. We went behind, but somehow clawed it back to win 2-1, putting us in a great position to qualify for the 'main' tournament. The top two from the group go through into the main competition, the losing two into a 'losers' plate. All we care about is the main one kicks off at 10am on the Sunday, the plate at 8am !
We then played Liverpool, who had beat Crewe 5-0, and were strongly fancied. We played excellent in this one and were only robbed victory by a brilliant solo equaliser by their striker who had run half the pitch with the ball.
The draw effectively qualified us, and with that in mind and tiredness kicking in, we could only muster a draw against Crewe, putting the Liverpool result into perspective. Highlight of the day though was the 3-hour attempt of 17-blokes to put up a gazebo, much to the amusement of the Leicester lads. Within five mins of it finally being up, it had blown away !
Back to the hotel by 4pm, we hit the Elbow Room for a couple of hours, before a quick change then dinner in Tiger Tiger for 7pm. Whilst there we discovered we had drawn Millwall for the next day. Millwall have one of the better teams and were tipped by some to win it, so it wasn't exactly warmly received.
Excellent negotiation by Charlton Charlie saw us whisked from the restaurant and into the VIP bar which happened to be filled with hen parties. Indeed, everywhere on Saturday night was filled with hen parties. We left there at 11.30 before hitting Oceania for a repeat of the Friday night. We bumped into a couple of Millwall lads we knew and sadly they didn't seem anywhere near as drunk as us. The bulk of us called it in at 3am, but redarmySE7, bobbolder and a couple of hours decided they needed more!
By hook and crook, we made it to the Uni in good time, spent 80% of our warm up trying to get two balls out of a tree, and then turned in a sterling backs to the wall performance against Millwall. Real competitive match played in good spirit, they had quick players much younger than us, but we worked our nuts off to stop them playing, and managed to nick a winner. It was a real turn up for the books, so we were delighted we'd won the South London derby, and it was great the Welling United and Leicester lads we'd made good friends with turned up to lend us support.
We then had holders Lens in the last 16. Their gifts of red wine were well received, but that is where their hospitality ended. They were awesome, and run us off the park. Somehow though it stayed at 0-0 and with 3 mins to go we had a one on one that Ferg just put wide, with him having scored an identical goal the previous day. One min later, a French player unleashed a 30-yard pile-driver that left Dave Storry no chance.
So that was that, Worldnet over for another year. By getting to the last 16 we over-achieved, but then again we don't go to win it but for the experience. Its very rare you get such a large group of blokes so different, yet get on so well, and i can very much doubt there is another side that quite enjoys the weekend as much as we do.
Me and Charlton Charlie are looking at starting up a fresh Charlton supporters team to play occassional friendlies against other supporters clubs where our fixtures coincide this season, Preston have already contacted and said they could get a side down here in time to play a game before the 'big teams' at The Valley. So if anyone is interested in wearing the shirt and representing Charlton 5-6 times a season, please send me or Charlton Charlie a whisper.
There are 1,000+ members on here now, and i know personally a lot of you play, so it would be great to raise a side a few times a season to play the occassional Saturday morning game.
AFKA
PS. And public thanks for Charlton Charlie for not only keeping this going up till now, but the sterling work in organising the weekend. Organising the entries, money, minibus hire, driving the bus, booking the hotels, restaurants etc really is a thankless task, but he always does it without any moans (he leaves me to do that)
Nice touch this. The manager from the Preston fans team got a phone call from the Chairman this morning congratulating him on winning the cup. Preston have a friendly v Everton tonight, and he has invited the team onto the pitch before the game and are going to play 'we are the champions' over the tannoy.
Comments
just back, nice 6-hour journey back.... :-(
legendary weekend once again, will do a write-up tomorrow. Curry and bed now....
Oh and if anyone mentions "headache dancing" ignore them its all vicious lies!
Brilliant weekend as always. Disaster from the start on Friday, Charlton Charlie went to pick up the minibus in Charlton, only to be told he had to drive to Canterbury to get it. Gets there and told the booking was wrong and it should be an extra £100. Coughed up as he had no other option, only to find on the drive back the van had a 60mph limiter on it !
Didn't bother the rest of us, who started supping in The Albany at 11am, and the advance party who had made it to Leeds in time for the 11am opening of Tiger Tiger !
Journey up was eased by the two coolboxes of lager, questionable reading material, and DJ AFKA on the mix (move over Ketman).
Checked in the hotel, shower and straight out. Leeds is surprisingly one of the best places in the UK for a night out, and didn't disappoint. We ended up in the multi-roomed, multi-floored Oceania nightclub, and the 80s room dancefloor become our second home. Dave Storry was swinging his hips so much i thought they might need to be replaced before the football !
A 15-hour drinking session probably wasn't the best prep for a football tournament, nor was buying of Subway's at 3.30am for advance breakfast, but that's how we do it. Some teams go up there for a serious tournament, we go for the laughs and night outs with a bit of footy thrown into the mix.
Despite not one player getting in before 3am, we were up and on the coach at 9am to Leeds Uni, where the tournament is held. Seventy teams competed this year, and its quite a sight seeing the swarm of lads all in their teams kit taking over the place.
We were on the backfoot from the start against Leicester, who had traveled up that morning and were fresh. We went behind, but somehow clawed it back to win 2-1, putting us in a great position to qualify for the 'main' tournament. The top two from the group go through into the main competition, the losing two into a 'losers' plate. All we care about is the main one kicks off at 10am on the Sunday, the plate at 8am !
We then played Liverpool, who had beat Crewe 5-0, and were strongly fancied. We played excellent in this one and were only robbed victory by a brilliant solo equaliser by their striker who had run half the pitch with the ball.
The draw effectively qualified us, and with that in mind and tiredness kicking in, we could only muster a draw against Crewe, putting the Liverpool result into perspective. Highlight of the day though was the 3-hour attempt of 17-blokes to put up a gazebo, much to the amusement of the Leicester lads. Within five mins of it finally being up, it had blown away !
Back to the hotel by 4pm, we hit the Elbow Room for a couple of hours, before a quick change then dinner in Tiger Tiger for 7pm. Whilst there we discovered we had drawn Millwall for the next day. Millwall have one of the better teams and were tipped by some to win it, so it wasn't exactly warmly received.
Excellent negotiation by Charlton Charlie saw us whisked from the restaurant and into the VIP bar which happened to be filled with hen parties. Indeed, everywhere on Saturday night was filled with hen parties. We left there at 11.30 before hitting Oceania for a repeat of the Friday night. We bumped into a couple of Millwall lads we knew and sadly they didn't seem anywhere near as drunk as us. The bulk of us called it in at 3am, but redarmySE7, bobbolder and a couple of hours decided they needed more!
By hook and crook, we made it to the Uni in good time, spent 80% of our warm up trying to get two balls out of a tree, and then turned in a sterling backs to the wall performance against Millwall. Real competitive match played in good spirit, they had quick players much younger than us, but we worked our nuts off to stop them playing, and managed to nick a winner. It was a real turn up for the books, so we were delighted we'd won the South London derby, and it was great the Welling United and Leicester lads we'd made good friends with turned up to lend us support.
We then had holders Lens in the last 16. Their gifts of red wine were well received, but that is where their hospitality ended. They were awesome, and run us off the park. Somehow though it stayed at 0-0 and with 3 mins to go we had a one on one that Ferg just put wide, with him having scored an identical goal the previous day. One min later, a French player unleashed a 30-yard pile-driver that left Dave Storry no chance.
So that was that, Worldnet over for another year. By getting to the last 16 we over-achieved, but then again we don't go to win it but for the experience. Its very rare you get such a large group of blokes so different, yet get on so well, and i can very much doubt there is another side that quite enjoys the weekend as much as we do.
Me and Charlton Charlie are looking at starting up a fresh Charlton supporters team to play occassional friendlies against other supporters clubs where our fixtures coincide this season, Preston have already contacted and said they could get a side down here in time to play a game before the 'big teams' at The Valley. So if anyone is interested in wearing the shirt and representing Charlton 5-6 times a season, please send me or Charlton Charlie a whisper.
There are 1,000+ members on here now, and i know personally a lot of you play, so it would be great to raise a side a few times a season to play the occassional Saturday morning game.
AFKA
PS. And public thanks for Charlton Charlie for not only keeping this going up till now, but the sterling work in organising the weekend. Organising the entries, money, minibus hire, driving the bus, booking the hotels, restaurants etc really is a thankless task, but he always does it without any moans (he leaves me to do that)
good effort though chaps especially considering the age of the squad LOL
Don't know where he was, probably gone for a burger...
Would love to play if I can make it work.
http://www.pnefc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10362~1347951,00.html