Winterthur 2008

Winterthur 8aside tournament August 22-24 2008, Switzerland
Morning Munich, Morning Major…
The trip began on the train (Swiss bound cattle truck) with Westy tucking into a succulent greasy
bird – perhaps not the first time for him – according to The Major.
The club kit was evenly distributed throughout the touring party and all responsible managed to get
their kit off the train – including the showjumping helm. However, for some reason, Lovell’s bat was
left and probably still is, wedged in on the train. For which the rest of the touring party (the
irresponsible?!) were blamed. Lovell then sat outside the hotel and toe punted over a chair knowing
he only had himself to blame. Shank list top 5 candidate.
The night saw a swift start with Clare wasting no time and cracking straight into two birds in the
hotel bar – one fit and one not. “Westy’s Whet Club” so christened by Luke and consisting of Westy,
Rob Shaw, Clare and Wrighty slipped off to Zurich at some point and reported to have spent
obscene amounts of cash on a bottle of vodka  – 1226 Swiss francs or roughly
750 Euros. Topped up with 200 Euro bottles of vodka they returned on the first train Saturday
morning and turned up on time for a breakfast of Big Mac and fries. Breakfast of champions.
Meanwhile…
Friday night ended at a much more sensible hour for the English contingent (lightweights?). Sobek
was first out at around 12am with the Major and Joel Garner following on a few hours later.
Despite having separate rooms, Clare Rich had taken the key to the Major’s room with him to
Zurich so that left a rather uncomfortable request for asylum with Garner. Some time later, Lovell
strolled in and proceeded to shamelessly strip down to his y-fronts and climb into the bed between
the sleeping duo as the rather attractive but large chunk of meat in the sandwich.05:30 and the MCC club captain’s foghorn impressions rudely woke up the Major who decided to
vacate the stench of the threesome for his own ‘bed’ because Rich MUST be back by now. Wrong.
After five minutes of banging, kicking and rattling the door handle of room 32 there was still no
answer. “Are you sure there’s someone in there friend?” asked a disgruntled neighbour. The Major
then gave up and was forced to rejoin Garner and Lovell to wrestle back possession of his sleeping
bag.
Game 1: Winterthur v. MCC
Good weather had been ordered last Tuesday and horribly failed to turn up with a moist day on
Saturday. Munich were stitched up with an early doors sparrow fart game against the hosts
Winterthur who decided to bat first. MCC were shocking in the field with catches going down all
over the shop. Shaw dropped one off Garner, Garner dropped one off Shaw – honours even.
Fortunately Winterthur amassed only 69 runs which were promptly dispatched by openers
“Wheton” (47*) and Lovell (20*)
Charitable Athletics
The 6 hour wait between matches was admirably filled by making the most of the impressive
adjoining Wintertur sporting facilities that included a running track and 5 aside football pitches.
Sheltering in the stands from severely deteriorating weather, Greg aka Rog the Peasant aka Patrick
Bateman (first seen that day resplendent in club blazor sweeping twigs from the pitch), bravely
entered himself in an event that involved running round the track for charity in aid of the citizens of
Malawi. www.tearfund.ch
At the gun he fired out the blocks for an impressive first 400m leaving the field of mostly old men
and young girls for dead. For every franc raised one gruelling lap had to be completed.Dictionary definition of peasant: “…a coarse, unsophisticated, boorish, uneducated person of little
financial means.” See above peasant entertaining equally peasant crowd with refrains of “I say
‘BACKSIDE’, you say…?!”
Suitable running gear in the form of Ethiopian Mink was unavailable (new item in next seasons
merchandising brochure naturally with MCC logo, colour: Tabby, massive margin) so 21 laps of the
track were completed in official club kit (even bigger margin) to the big ups of the very vocal
commentary team who plainly loved the MCC for their effort.
The 21 lap burden was shared between MCC members including a race that ended with Lovell
revealing an uncanny natural talent for the Olympic Walking event on the final straight. All MCC
members put in what would have been scintillating lap times, were they timed, in comparison to the
other entries who admittedly were all probably running about one hundred laps each in aid of
charity.
New respect was gained for Olympic athletes who didn’t win their medals sitting down and Number
4, the big unit, who picked it up each time he went past only to look closer to the edge of death on
the next lap.
The 21 Swiss francs raised at one franc a lap for 21 laps seems a paltry sum to be sending to
Malawi for basic survival necessities when slightly more effort in the form of an extra 1205 laps
could have got the entire nation one bottle of champagne…to share between them…
Game 2: MCC v. Prague
The Creature: “Morning Major!”After an all day wait Munich’s second game against Prague, led by The Creature was quickly
monsooned off after only 5 overs so play was packed in and shelter taken. The start of the match
was tossed over by Lovell and The Creature. Once the winning captain had decided what to do,
Mark gracefully extended his hand to said Creature who instantly turned his back and walked away
ignorantly snubbing a rather bemused looking Lovell whose face was a picture.
Westy’s ‘Whet Club’ would have to go some to out-wet das Wetter…
Wagamamas was the restaurant of choice after the day’s biathlon and proved to be quality, if a little
draughty. One word…dumplings…no not Anna…
Paddy “there’s something wrong with this beer mate” O’Briens was the meeting point for the other
teams so a flat pint was duly supped in a bar which was admittedly, “well designed for a Trotters
bar”.
Winterthur timely hosted a massive music festival that weekend and entertainment was provided by
a ska band who fair rocked it with “I say Venkat…you say Koka”. The hotel bar, in the centre of
town, right where the festival took place was the next stop.
Major Bruce Forsyth turned out to be “one of those touchy feely types” He nonchalantly struck his
favourite pose whilst prowling for a Brucie bonus along the edge of the dancefloor.Major Bruce
Meanwhile photographic evidence shows Rog the Peasant disappearing to throw some shapes on
the DF with a hands in the air attitude to life. Mullered, he trained it later back to Zurich in the
small hours only to nobly and commendably arrive on time for the next day’s sport attired in
trademark blazer and freshly ironed whites. The Great Gatsby doesn’t even come close.
After leaving Rog it was a desperate attempt to find somewhere interesting to carry on the drinking.
First up was Coyote bar with fake palm trees dotted tackily around the place. A pathetic attempt to
copy the theme of the slightly more famous Coyote Ugly. It wasn’t long before a body double for
Big Daddy pulled his burly frame onto the bar, sat on his knees only to have his head viciously
pulled back – by butt antlers that wanted the back door taking out of. His mouth was mercilessly
filled with what probably was scented water from a vodka bottle to the lashed up cheers from his
fellow builder workmates.
Only one place remained open after we left Coyote and that was the poncy cafe bar by the station.
We had a beer in there watching the Marathon before calling it a night and heading back to base.
Surprisingly the hotel bar was still fairly lively but after a desperate attempt to purchase one last
beer to quench the eternal thirst, we were told the bar was closed and therefore no other option was
left but to get some sleep…
Day 2, Game 2 Continued…
The game versus Prague was resumed at the ungodly hour of 09:30 on Sunday morning. Turned out
nice again as the ordered good weather eventually turned up. Prague set the respectable target of
114 for MCC to win thanks in no small part to Garner whose true bowling figures shall remain
secret due to poor low resolution shots of the scorebook…but rest assured he went for more runs
than a severe case of Backsidewatersir over the gas works.Munich therefore faced (in both senses of the word) a tough chase when openers Weston and Lovell
were out before enforced retirement, for 31 and 25 respectively. Wrighty, supported by Clare, put
on a gritty display to bring it down to the wire and retire on 40. Shaw then came in, smashed a 1 and
Sobek finished off in nonchalant style with a 6 as MCC coasted home in the last over.
Having qualified for the final and being rather spent from the sporting efforts the night and day
before only the Major took part in any extra curricular sporting activities by shooting some hoops
and proving himself to be an all round sportsman – despite being a Millwall fan. The rest of the
team flaked it out in the now beautiful sunshine and half watched the other teams battle it out in the
heat.
The Final: MCC v. Freiburg
Having trained all their lives for this match and loaded up on curry the MCC hobbled out to field
first in the welcome sunshine apart from Lovell who assumed his fielding position in the comfy
deck chair.
Freiburg batted well as “Darth Vader” so named by the touring English team for his long hair and
batting helm combination retired on 41 and Shane got a valuable 34. Garner redeemed himself with
the best bowling figures for MCC…funny, the resolution of the photo for that page of the scorebook
was fine…Freiburg posted an imposing total leaving MCC 123 to win.
MCC started batting well with Weston swatting the opening bowling long into the houses on 5
occasions and once long and straight aiming no doubt for the pink bibbed, hand clapping football
team?! The hosts cringed each time he faced and ended up out of match quality cricket balls and
probably a lawsuit on their hands.
Lovell was out frustrated caught on the fence off the bowling of Darth Vader for 20. MCC kept the
dot balls down but chipping away the ones and twos was never going to win it. It went close in the
end but the bowling quality of Freiburg was high enough to maintain a reasonable line and length
for this type of game and it was impossible to shuffle across and chip sixes over the gas works when
needed.
The day ended with a trophy presentation to the Freiburg captain who was gracious in victory and
thanks from the hosts to generous applause.
MCC left for the train shortly after and a journey back to sunny Munich which was mostly spent in
the buffet car observing the waiter who obviously had one or two pages stuck together. No kit was
left behind on the return leg and all got home with no apparent reports of death or serious injury but
one of severe backside water.
…exactly. Did you know: there’s three croissants in a basket?