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The Paladin Tour of Horsham Colts: Heading for a new world....

The Paladin Tour of Horsham Colts: Heading for a new world....

User 15312517 Apr 2014 - 23:46
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We are now just six hours from departure. Excitement is mounting, but so too trepidation.

We are going to a new world, seeking out new life forms. These are players who have only previously explored foreign Rugby in Belgium and Holland. For them the French Rugby player is a mythical creature, drooling and bearded, fe fi fo fum, smelling the blood of Englishmen. This weekend the myth becomes reality....

All systems are go: the English coach will depart the club at 4.45pm, the ferry is booked for 8.15pm, the clubbing gets underway at 11, casino likewise, the pre-booked section of 33 seats looks like going begging for most of the night. And at 0815 we shall arrive sur La France and meet up with our French coach driver Bernard who will be jovial and fun filled because it will be his perfect way of spending Easter weekend, to drive around a bunch of English Rugby players who will constantly be asking stupid questions and requesting to stop every five minutes.

We are promised a welcoming committee in Saint Maixent: so bleary eyedness will not be permitted. Unfortunately by this time, half the team will be wearing the wrong size hoodies because they didn't put their names in their own, most of the rest will have lost either their phones, their wallets or their passports. On Saturday morning we have a civic reception at the Mairie. We have with us the gifts from Horsham District Council, who were kind enough to give the boys a send off, as you may have seen in the press. We will be asking our tour interpreter to read the letter from Cllr Philip Circus - the letter is in English but our interpreter remains convinced that the U he obtained in his French GCSE was for Unbelievable, so we are confindent of a fine translation. We can all then feast on the small bar of Horsham gingerbread provided by the council as a gift for the town of Saint Maixent, and we can even offer to help with the washing up using the other gift, the tea towel of Horsham! Actually to be serious, it was very good of the council to give us a send off and a nice couple of write ups in the press too.

In between worrying if my fake beard would arrive, I have spent the morning photocopying photos kindly provided to me by Phil Allen, one of the earliest explorers of these foreign climes. For those of you who don't know, it was the Rugby Club which first uncovered Saint Maixent's charms. They ran a series of tours in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was as a result of those tours, and the Saint Maixent teams coming over to Horsham, that the official twinning began of Horsham and Saint Maixent: so there you have it: it was the Rugby Club wot did it. Looking through the photos Phil has kindly loaned me, I see there was a tour to Saint Maixent at Easter in 1974: I don't know if that was the first ever tour, but it is certainly an extraordinary feat that here we are 40 years later, returning to the town our Rugby predecessors visited all those years ago. There has been no tour to Saint Maixent for the past 20+ years, so we are truly uncovering the hidden trail of our forefathers. One of the photos shows the line up of players from 1974: all beards and big hair, lining up smartly for the photo. The next photo shows the same bunch flat on their backs doing dead ants! It sends a shudder of nervousness through me: somehow I don't think it's the last dead ants I'll see this weekend - rugby traditions run deep and strong.

Our tour will feature a tournament against 3 French sides on Saturday and the big match vs Saint Maixent on Sunday. Careful observers of the timetable will have seen that our hosts have allowed for a 4 hour lunch in advance of that game! The teams will be competing for a very smart trophy donated by the Horshan Twinning Committee - our thanks to them - but coaches Riley and Birch may need to curtail the lunch, to prevent it finding a new home in the corner of a French trophy cabinet!

We go armed not just with tea towels and gingerbread, but that special English weapon of Easter: the Cadbury's Cream Egg. My French spies assure me these chocolate treats are unavailable in France yet loved by the French: we have 100!!

So we are ready. I'm reliably informed that Marks and Spencer (Horsham Branch) has no more supplies of multi packs of pink, red, blue and green socks - any more than the Party shop has supplies of false beards. As an early heads up, a forlorn email was sent to a very small number of people (this missive has certainly rectified that circulation problem) claiming he had been unable to leave the office to buy any coloured socks. I have little doubt that the chief snitch will get to hear of this, that news will be passed to the Chief Prosecutor, that the weights and meaures division will be called in, possibly the choirmasters too and it could all end up before the Magistrates bench. Such are the complexities of discipline in the modern Rugby Tour. Will it be enough to wrest the Wobble Wig from Scotty?

Back to the serious stuff. This tour would not have been possible but for the extraordinary generosity on two fronts. Our French hosts, who are laying on our accommodation, food and matches and our sponsor Paladin Capital and their CEO Sylvester Vince-Odozi, who has showed outstanding generosity in supporting our tour and great enthusiasm for the development of our Colts as some of the most promising young players in Sussex. It's a great shame Sly won't be able to join us in France, but we will most certainly raise a glass to him and from myself and all the tourists, a huge and heartfelt thanks. Sly's generosity has - amongst much else - enabled us to travel in tour hoodies, polos and ties and we will look the part.

There is a meeting of the executive tour comittee just before we leave - I believe the Hornbrook at 2pm is the chosen venue. All are welcome, the boys too: leave them in the cars and we will take out coke and crisps.

And the final serious note: our thanks go to the following: Paladin Capital: Sly and Rebecca for their immense support, our hosts in Saint Maixent and particularly Stephane Guignard who has helped in every way possible, Horsham District Council: Sophie Cox and Cllr Philip Circus, The Horsham Twinning Committee, the Mayor of Saint Maixent, the officers of Horsham Rugby Club, Sussex Rugby and the RFU at Twickenham who have signed off the tour, Paul Birch for an impossible amount of administration, our own parents for all their support, John Riley our beloved head coach who will be leading the tour and of course the boys themselves. They are all very aware that in this historic tour they represent not only the Colts and Horsham Rugby Club but also the town of Horsham. They are a great bunch and I have no doubt they will do themselves great credit on and off the pitch. We look forward to reporting back as far as possible (what goes on tour....) and we will have plenty of photos available.

Au Revoir and souhaiter do Joyeuses fetes de Paques (Happy Easter)

Richard

Tour Organiser, The Paladin Tour of Horsham Colts: Saint Maixent L'Ecole, Easter 2014.

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