Well … our senior section after a long and tough season took themselves off on a rugby tour to the Isle of Wight…. Now, I was hoping to give you lots of details but have been reminded of the fact that “what goes on tour stays on tour”. There was a great picture of the tourist boarding the bus all dressed as Cheer leaders which was worrying start. From what I have gleaned, they had a very tough game against the giants of the Isle. Churchward let me know he’s never seen such big blokes… so we lost that game and then after a night of quaffing and tomfoolery, they arrive back on mainland to play their second team which was a lot more even thankfully given the state of our players… Sunday rugby on tour is tough and it’s also known as “positive Sunday”. This rule was bought about several years ago, as it was often a tad difficult to get players to play on the second day because of to much high jinks from the night before. The rule is If you are not positive you get punished which means when someone says “are you ok to playing?” you have no alternative but to say “how lovely I can’t wait” or something similar….. I asked my son for his thoughts on the tour and obviously he was cagy but he did say it was one of the best and there was a good vibe throughout the whole weekend long may the tradition continue life is dull if you can’t have a good old chuckle.

Not to be out done our Under 12’s crossed the border to Taffy land for their tour up one of the Valleys, Baragoed were the host and our boys had to have a quick lesson in “Welsh laws” which involves a full 15 a side game on a full pitch, all very new to our boys. Big thanks to Adam T for organising things and also to all the parents who went along to help, looks like a good time was had by all…

So, nuffin on Saturday which meant there was time to set things up for the Sunday 8’s and 9’s festival… there was no less than 27 teams playing, representing 9 clubs, our local Devon teams, Clevedon RFC and 2 South Wales clubs who were on tour. Our 4 teams did extremely well with many great performances. Food was a bit different this time, Flame cave Pizza crew, Man Grill, Sweets Shop Daisy Blue Delights, there was ice cream Van and Helen Newman from our local Honiton Sports shop was on hand to promote Honiton wears. Clevedon RFC actually camped overnight on the main pitch which was great After the numerous rugby games finished the clubhouse was full for most of the night and the Clevedon coach with guitar, lights and speakers entertained all . They drank the bar dry with a little help from Rory Biggins and Ed Harris . Literally everything was sold out!! It was a great day and a big thank you to everyone that helped, volunteered, car parked, set 6 pitches up etc... But the biggest thanks goes to Rory and Becky Biggins for their weeks of organisation for the day and everything worked so smoothly, even the weather.

So that’s it for rugby…so what’s next?... well… This weekend see the Cornination for Charlie boy on Saturday and on Sunday there are lots of community events on the field and our Junior section, are going to try and promote the club, along with a lot of the other town’s organisations which is great .

Now .. there has been some negative “social meja” about the club not opening the bar on this day so I thought I’d try and explain why the committee have done this… It’s definitely not because we are not interested in the community event and as I already mentioned, we whole heartly support it… the issue is…. historically we have been asked to open the bar for the public to use on these public occasions by the town council … unfortunately apart from the occasional person coming into use the loo’s no one buys drinks. Over the last ten years we have always opened and on two occasions we even took our bar up the field and set it up there, in a hope to attract more people… sadly we have always made little, to no money and our volunteers have given up full days just to sell a few pints of beer. Add to this….This year, our Town council has very kindly invited everyone to attend and have also suggested people bring their own picnics … now in my book, if I go on a jolly old picnic, I take a few cans and a nice bottle of wine (or two), so I’m not likely to buy drinks or food especially if budgets are tight.

We have on several occasion locked up saying, “what was the point in that ” only to be brow beaten into opening up for the next year… I think some of our critics forget, we survive on a shoe string budget and we are trying to be a business and I feel sure, if other business were asked over ten years to open for no profit, they’d have said no long ago. Of course we could be wrong but I know our previous long suffering bar manager complained every time and our current bar manager, Gordon and I, can provide evidence of this happening each year for the last 4. In conclusion… The club will be open for our members to use the changing facilities as I understand our juniors will be changing into kit to promote rugby as a sport and the introduction of our new girls section. I hope that makes sense and we are definitely not “community kill joys” as we are being made out to be.

Ok… moving on Monday… a call at 7am from my chum Welshy “there’s a fire at the club”!! I race down and thankfully it wasn’t us this time, it was the other side of the fence under the trees, the local oiks had once again set fire to things the night before and it was still smouldering… they had though climbed over our fence and burnt lots of our plastic water bottles…. I phoned the police to get yet another crime number… what’s the point!! Nuffin ever happens, it will be serious soon and my new chum from the fire department said this is the 2nd time this week they’d been called down to Allhallows.

A More positive notice…. we have our junior presentation day on the 14th May so if you want a good day out, why not come down to watch proceedings when the bar will be open and beer will be sold!

On the 27th it’s the senior presentation night and dinner and dance and there are still a few tickets available if you’d like to come. Oh! nearly forgot… if you are a keen supporter and want to vote for your “supporters player of the year”… text me with your vote with your name and I’ll tot ‘em up and give them to Churchy.

That’s it …

#UTT

Yours

A weary Jez