....... of course I don't really remember
much, as I'm afraid I was very, very, DRUNK!
Wednesday June 5th
Turning to the report, live. It all started with the excitement over
the impending Irish game against Germany. A few of the lads had arranged
to meet up in Jim's house to watch it, prior to going to the airport. Phil
O travelled down from Limerick that morning and witnessed the first of
much humorous banter in the taxi to the station.
Women at base (knacker limerick accent): Now lads (addressing the taxi
drivers), I know ye are all skiving off to watch the game at half twelve
but will ye please tell me if you are so I know who's available?
Taxi Driver (also knacker accent): Listen woman, will you ever fuck
off, you can shove your please up your hole!
Would it be fair to say the tour had begun? Yes, it would. The match
was entertaining with a late equaliser from Robbie Keane and this would
provide much fodder for discussion at the airport, although we think
Ireland should have done bether (in the words of Jim Beglin). 
Luckily this year
the airport proved to be no fiasco and things ran quite smoothly. All
arrived with time to spare, including Eddie Coogan who's name was not on
Jim's list, causing much confusion amongst the group but as it turned out
he was just up to see us off. Nice guy!
And so it was that with a barrage of FHMs, Loadeds, Maxims and Cosmos,
Spanair Flight JKK3984 took off from Cork and landed in exotic Alicante
some two and a half hours later having been entertained by the wonderful
in-flight magazine entitled Spanorama. After collecting baggage and a
painful roll call from The Leader, we met and had our first cavity search
from the friskily friendly rep for the week - Fondling Alastair aka
Fondalastair, who provided us with tourist maps and t-shirts. The luxury
coach awaiting us brought us to our hotel for the week, the
easily-confused Hotel Maya...
Again fiasco was avoided with a relatively straightforward check-in and
we were soon in the bar discussing the amazingly cheap bottles of beer.
Someone remarked that they should have charged more as we'd have drank
them anyway but they had their chance! The only windup was the laziness of
the barman.
Wearing our drinking jerseys, after having downed a few, off we went to
Mulligan's, one of the many 'Irish' bars in Alicante. This was not the
greatest ever bar and so after a couple of beers, Jim decided that we were
leaving in 10 minutes. Half an hour later Jim revealed that we would be
leaving in 5 minutes and that no one was to get another beer. 15 minutes
and a beer later we headed for the nightclub, along with Fondalastair and
friends Joannie and the hockey 'judge' Tina (Phil O thought she was a
goalkeeper and still had her gear on under her clothes. He was wrong...)
The nightclub beckoned and after a brief walk through the darkened and
quiet streets enlivened by Elmer burping 'scaffolding', we reached our
destination. With a quick word with the bouncers, we were in. Tony and
Toni Couple took up station in the outside chairs, Tony and Toni On The
Pull bigged it up on the dancefloor inside. People started to disengage
from the nightclub around 4am although Eamon and Gene were nowhere to be
seen, possibly in a toilet somewhere?
Come N am, there's a few people still alive, mainly thanks to the tiny
amount of caffeine present in our vodkas and cokes... There's also an
awful lot of vodka in them, which might explain the next event of note.
Jim, Elmer, Dave, and one or two others and stumbling home along the
waterfront. Elmer puts it out there that jumping in the harbour would be a
good idea. Jim disagrees, but can't formulate coherent sentences to make
the case. Dave on the other hand fully endorses Elmer's plan*. Thus, Elmer
derobes to his boxers and dives in - in fairness to him, he did make sure
there were some steps built into the harbour wall to help him get out
before he succumbed to disease or hypothermia...
Insert by Elmer:
After a very impressive start to the night #1's proceedings, I
exited the nightclub tired but happy. Unfortunately, the nightclub
was situated on a magnificent waterfront. Now this is all very well and
good if you are looking at the club from an American tourist's
perspective, all they would see is the wonderful architect that
blended into the wonderful spectacle of a modern harbour complete with
bountiful supply of commercial assets. However, all I saw (when I was
ejected from the club) was 'a big jump into the watery ocean' and it was
calling to me. Overcome with excitement, I couldn't contain my 8th wind of
energy and I bounded off in the direction of the marina. On the way, I
passed Jim and Dave and drunkenly explained my plan to the lads. Jim
seemed a little edgy about the whole thing, however Dave seemed a little
bit more enthusiastic. However, he did have certain reservations, the
biggest one being that the pier was at least 8 feet above waterlevel and
there were no immediate signs of a means of getting back out!! So I ran
off to find a stairs. Luckily, I found one less than 50 metres down the
dock. I shouted to Dave to take a look. He seemed to hatching another
qualm about the whole thing as he gradually made his way over. He slowly
leaned over the edge to survey the depth, however I was already stripped
down to my boxers at this stage and as he turned around to air his latest
grievance about the whole thing, I was already mid flight and fully
committed to my somersault. I landed the leap with the sublime grace of
15-year-old Romanian gymnasts. Overcome with pride for my efforts and
still 'full of beans', I did it again. Needless to say, Dave declined the
invite.
I don't remember the rest of the night, but I can only assume that I
must have gained some sort of natural high because by all accounts, I went
mental when I got back to the hotel. I can explain with this simple short
story from breakfast from the following morning. I think it was with Marc
and 2 others (Baz maybe). But anyway, they informed me that someone came
back and made loads of noise. Apparently people went jumping on beds,
knocking on random rooms waking innocent residents in the hotel and
generally acting like drunken idiots. I was outraged, I couldn't believe
that someone in our group was such an inconsiderate duface. "What f***ing
moron is so f***ing retarded that he can't stay f***ing quiet for two
f***ing minutes and has to act like a spare f***ing prick the minute
he goes on f***ing holidays. How f***ing ignorant. I swear to God, if I
get my hands on whoever got us into f**king trouble this f***ing early in
the holiday, I'll wring their f***ing neck". Once I had finished my rant
(and my cereal), I retired to my room where Ronan informed me that when I
got back to the hotel the previous night, I strutted passed the hotel
reception, dripping wet, then I proceeded to run wild on our floor jumping
on Rebecca's and Susan's beds, then I went knocking random doors, got
chased by a random dweller, then I outran him up the stairs, (one
flight), got the lift straight back down and walked past the irate
guest who couldn't figure out if it was us or not. Hee hee, sorry I
mean bugga!
End of insert
Red lights = Don't Stop. This equation is apparently the Alicante Taxi
Driver's rule of thumb. Still, they are amazingly cheap and they managed
to get us home with our lives intact. Jim, Dave, Sue and Toni ended up in
what we thought was a cab - it turned out to be some sort of drugged up
army guy - luckily we too were also brought home unscathed. The night was
rounded off without much incident, barring Gally's acquisition of the
heifer of heifers (more on this later).
*A few weeks later, while on the piss in Glandore with Dave and the
lads, Elmer would once again decide to jump into a harbour in the early
hours. Sadly, this time the tide was out...
Thursday June 6th
Marcus Bentley, the Big Brother narrator: Day 2... UCC, have been
summoned to the Diary Room, and have been nominated for eviction. UCC have
failed to complete their tasks of not making noise, arriving into the
hotel in soaking wet clothes, and not getting sick over the balcony...
Turning to the manager of the hotel, would it be fair to say that one
more incident and the police were on their way to evict the team? It
would... Some stern words from the leader were needed but he was too busy
acquiring Balcony Sickness, a syndrome that leads to the head of the group
releasing all his internal organs through his mouth from the balcony of
his bedroom.
Breakfast in the hotel, for those that made it, consisted of ham and
cheese along with coco pops in hot milk al espana. Nice. Others stayed in
bed, only actually fully waking up as they hit the water of the pool...
Part of the group then headed to the beach, a short five minutes from
the hotel. It would be fair to say that the sand was not delightfully
clean, nor was the water. Phil O managed to spot a sanitary towel floating
near the waters edge, a deterrent to swim if there ever was one but being
Irish with the whole 'who gives a fuck' attitude Elmer and Phil O entered
the water where the discussion lead to the quality of 'ham sandwiches'
(breasts) on view in 'cippolinis'(bikinis), as well as who had had 'tea'
(foreplay) and 'coffee' (sex) the night before.
It turned out that Gally, our Director of Fun, had indeed managed to
land a whale or a seal (something that may have lead to a very accurate
impression by the pool on our last day). Man she was a beast, not exactly
built for speed or soft ground if you catch the drift. Well, well done
Gally, the first of the single men to score, though the spotlight was to
be quickly taken off him by one man from Bandon, to be revealed in time...
As the beach turned out
to be shit, we headed back to the pool in the hotel, where everyone else
met up and the day was passed, some going for food in KFC, others
disappearing upstairs for a quickie (sleep that is) before meeting up to
go out that night. A large group went for Pizza in Tarantino's, while
others had a BK.
Mulligan's was our venue again, but this time it was a little livelier,
with most of the other teams arriving during that day. 
Gally's
friend was back but Gally did his best to hide out by the pool table all
night so no forward advances could be made. However, she did have her
friends with her again, one of whom Dave took a liking to. Dave quickly
engaged at full throttle, as it were. The Lemon Lads (Jim, Jer and Lenny)
watched with interest. Jim goes over to the chatting duo and asks Dave if
he wants anything from the bar, Dave says 'Sound Jim, a pint please', Jim
goes back to the lads and says 'Not great, to be honest'...
Dave goes to the bar himself and brings back a Smirnoff Ice for the
lady. Soon, it emerges that she is going out with someone. Dave rapidly
disengages and returns to the lads. "I bought her a drink! I *******
bought her a drink! I don't believe it..." Dave is gutted.
All is not lost however, Dave and the bird re-engage. Negotiations take
place, and it is agreed that they won't actually score, but it's ok to
disappear down a convenient alley in order that the lady might perform the
act of fellatio, as it were... ooh, suit you Kenneth!
Dave returns a few short but heady minutes later. Understandably, he
gleefully tells the lads about events. However the high fives from the
lads are abruptly cancelled when Dave divulges, in a moment of bizarre
candour, his failure to seal the deal, so to speak. An utter lack of
ejaculation, if you will... Dave argues that all he received was a
'cockpecking', but the lads won't let up. Dave gets bitter. No fault.
Anyway, afer the shock of Dave's performance deficiencies subsides, we
mingle with the other teams. They're all fairly boring especially the
hosts who are taking it easy ahead of the match with UCC in the morning.
Honestly! We on the other hand go back to the same nightclub. Only one
vaguely amusing thing happened, namely Jim warning Dave against chatting
up another of Fondalastair's weird buddies, on the grounds that she
doesn't drink!
Marc and Derry decided to stay out all night insisting that it would
make them sharper for the matches on Friday. Elmer appears to have made an
impression on the boys who also decided that an early morning swim was a
good option. The lads wisely decided to swim by the beach, thus avoiding
disease. Good thinking lads.
Friday June 7th
The first day of
the tournament proper saw us play against the hosts, Universtiy of
Alicante (though none of them on the team were actually in college there
it seemed) and the old geezers from Bedford. The girls also were to play
twice but only one team turned up. The coach turned up and ferried us to
the lavish university facility - water based pitch, mini-stand, and a bar
with two absolutely gorgeous barmaids!
The French arrived in a mini-bus and with them was Damo, our beloved
former-UCC Lyon alcoholic. Damo was in good form and his teammates were
pretty sound, including Tom, who Ronan noted couldn't say a sentence
without the word 'cunt' in it. Lyon were on the pitch before us, and they
borrowed Gally, Baz and Phil O for their game. They looked to be a very
good side but their tournament was to be marred by sheer alcoholism...
The lads were up against the pre-tournament favourites, who had Juan
Escarre, the most ever capped Spanish player and captain of some sort of
World XI, and loads of other excellent players. We defied the heat and the
hangovers to play really well, until Crowley fucked up and we conceded a
goal... In the end we lost 3-0 which was to prove to be the best score of
any team against them. Dave achieved partial redemption for his cockup
with his story of actually blacking out on the pitch at one stage...
Meanwhile, Ronan had come on late in the game and managed one touch.
Activity between matches
involved drinking, sunning ourselves, drinking, eating ham and cheese
sandwiches, drinking, avoiding getting soaked when the pitch was being
watered, drinking, and drinking. The newly evolved 'lemon gang' formed
their own 'bar' on the dirt behind the stand and adjourned there during
the all-too-frequent pitch waterings... There were no issues getting the
rounds in - the barmaids were so good-looking that nobody minded making
the minor trek inside...
Jer in a fit of world cup mania decided later the game to go for a run
to find somewhere that the English (versus Argentina) game might be on and
returned panting like a dog twenty minutes later. 
Jer:
"There's a place, huh a huh a huh a huh, down the road there, huh a huh a
huh a huh, where they're showing the game, huh a huh a huh." Some went to
watch the game, others stayed to watch the ladies play. Those attempting
to follow Jer to the match became increasingly embittered, as a farce
ensued... None of the pubs were showing the game - it was on a
pay-per-view channel it seemed... We heroically marched on, practically
out into the desert beyond the city, and we eventually found a little bar
that indeed have it on, and as a bonus, they served the most delicious*
raw sausage type thingys.
After the girls game
everyone else met up to see the second half of the game, a one nil win for
the English. Argentina were guthed and should have done bether. During the
game Alice noted how alike Tom from Lyon was to our Gav and it must be
said the resemblance was uncanny. Alice: "I said to Simon, Tom from
Lyon looks the image of Gav. What did I say Simon?"
Simon:
"Tom from Lyon looks the image of Gav."
After multiple raw sausage sandwiches, which left the toilets back at
the pitch in an unhealthy state it was time for the second game of the
tournament. Meanwhile Johnny or Juanny arrived down from Barcelona and
after a few Shack Specials (see Alkmaar report) we took to the pitch.
The lads were on to play
the Bedford punters. In true wily codger style, the oldest and least
impressive of them made fools out of Lenny and Dave. Then poor old Jimmy
takes a ball full in the face... Jim fears the worst but a tentative
probing of his face reveals a surprising lack of loose teeth and blood.
Nonetheless Jim retires from the field of play. By coincidence, things
fall apart and the old geezers take the lead. In the second half, Jim goes
back on for Dave, and within minutes has set up the equaliser for Eamon
who is in great form. And then, in a moment of genius, the boy Butler
scores what proves to be the winner with a beautiful dummy followed by a
low drag to the corner. What a comeback! (note from Elmer: guess who wrote
this paragraph...) Meanwhile, Ronan had come on late in the game and
managed two touches, bringing his tally thus-far to 3.
The French in the last game of the day again drafted college players in
the guise of Johnny, Phil O and Baz. Johnny and Phil ruined the Lyon chant
by roaring 'sucky calf' at the end of their psyche up shout.
D'unbelievable!
Thus, after a succesful day, we are bussed back to Hotel Maya. The plan
is to freshen up, maybe even have a kip for an hour or so, then meet up in
the lobby/bar and go out for some munch. The two lifts struggle to cope
with the demand, so the Lemon Gang decide to go to the bar for a quick one
while waiting for the queue to subside... Two or so hours later, prompted
by the appearance in the bar of some UCC punter looking freshly groomed,
showered and rested, ready for the night ahead, one of the lads would say
"I suppose we should check if it's free now!"
Thus, the Lemon Gang tended to miss the main parties embarking for
dinner each evening. Lou, never the best at timekeeping, and Phil S
usually ended up with us also, due to Lou's apparent inability to get
ready for anything in under 3 hours...
Nighttime entertainment again found us in Mulligan's, where most of the
teams were. Entertainment was being adequately provided by some cute chick
dancing on a table, until Damo came up with 'pass the ice cube' game,
after a failed and less popular game of 'pass the lighter.' Some people
got rather excited by this as the cube went round and round. Jess then
wondered why she got a sore throat...
Notable exclusions from the party appeared to be Derry and Marc whose
antics the previous night lended themselves to a 7pm power nap, which Marc
never recovered from. Derry joined the group at 2am, presumably back in
the nightclub. Nothing happened there that night, though Lenny may have
been kicked out for the first time (for doing his dead arm thing...)
Saturday June 8th
The lads were up very early to play Lyon on Saturday morning. No real
gossip from the night before with the bulk of the talk centring on the
cute table dancer in Mulligan's the night before. Ronan was AWOL - it was
suggested that Fast Eddies had flown out to pick him up as he was urgently
needed to hand out flyers that night. In fact, the poor lad was simply
hungover, and as such wasn't to add to his touch tally of 3.
The Lyon team consisting
of 11 outfielders lost to College 3-2. After our hungover leader's failure
to raise the spirit of the players at half time, Phil S was given the
mantle and gave us a 'fuckin' speech Eddie Kirwan would be proud of. The
3-2 victory gave the lads a great chance of finishing second in the group
if they were to beat the Dutchies in the final game - not that we
particularly cared about doing well, it was just that if we came second in
the group, or match the next day would be at the brilliantly late time of
12.30.
The girls also managed a win and a draw, which gave them a shot at the
title. A good all round performance by everyone saw them into Sunday's
final. In true UCC style the girls began to drink heavily on the sideline.
With the incentive of not
having to play until 12.30, the lads knew the importance of victory. (It
didn't stop us drinking copious amounts before the game of course...) The
game was tight, but a Marc O'Leary goal after good work by Jer, Lennington
and Phil S was enough to guarantee a 3rd/4th place play off for the lads.
And so, back to the hotel. The Bedford blokes (sound chaps to be fair)
were sharing the bus with us, so it was deemed appropriate to start
singing such songs as "What's it like to be so old?" "Don't you wish that
you could ride?" and other such cruel (though obviously hilarious)
ditties...
Into the bar and the crowd for the lift - we are mostly on the 6th
floor so the stairs is not really an option. The Lemon Gang do their
'let's go to the bar for a quick one while the lift queue dies down but in
reality end up staying their for ages' thing. Today, conversation is
dominated by talk of "John John Bitter" (Johnny Enright) and stuff he has
nicked from Lenny and Dave's room. John has been nominated to be 'Mr
Bitter' His duties mainly involve being very surly all the time.
The first people back to the bar are in fact the Bedford gents. They
join the Lemons for some banter. Unfortunately, they are completely
ill-prepared for the bitter biting sarcasm and downright cruelty that the
Lemon Gang are passing off as banter... Thus they are perplexed as we make
jokes about lemons and Lennyland* and repeatedly give each other
homie-style clench-fisted salutes... However the Bedford lads try to fit
in by buying rounds, which is nice.
*Lennyland is a horrible bitter place where everyone is a wanker and
the weather is awful...........all the time and so on (and believe me we
took it a lot further!)
When the college punters arrived, some stayed downstairs to play
super-happy-fun-12-sided-dice-tequila-game, others retired to the pool.
Prior to painting Alicante red that night there was the little matter of
the tournament banquet - happily taking place downstairs in the hotel. We
take our seats in the dining room. John steals a recently-recovered
Ronan's seat, resulting in mild apoplexy from Ronan. He calls Johnny an
ignorant west-Limerick wanker, but doesn't get the seat back.
We were all wondering how civilised this affair would be - we quickly
found out... The chanting started from the French. The Belgians responded,
the French sang louder. The Dutch had a go but no one really cared, and
after many disappointed looks from Damien the Irish camp finally started.
I believe we out-sang everyone for about five minutes with the French
table joining courtesy of their contingent of Damian, Elmo, and Gally. The
food was delicious, filling, memorable, tasty, great, brilliant,
marvellous, mangy, horrible, shit, too small, revolting and disgusting
depending on who you were talking to. The olives came in handy for
missiles and it wasn't long before a food fight erupted. (During this, the
Gibraltar team were quietly eating their carefully prepared pasta dishes
and sipping water.)
After all this calmed down and Alistair compared all the teams to their
respective national football teams in his wee speech, awards were
presented to all. Jim and Gene failed to make a speech, strange for the
leader, but we were subjected to speeches from all the other nations,
which made it sound like a Eurovision song contest. During the Dutch
courage speech Rebecca turned down the chance to share her knowledge of
the female orgasm but the Dutch captain did a demonstration anyway. To end
the banquet, the entire room sang happy birthday to the Extended Kenefick
Family.
We finally arranged to find a new bar and the Bud Café was the popular
choice. The earliest there were Baz, Ronan, Eamon and Pete with most of
the girls where we had a discussion on the preferred and more common terms
for the female mammary glands. Concluded with the girls going for 'boobs'
and the lads going for the 'tits'. Cathy announces that she loves the term
'bumfuck' and the night slowly began to descend into a drunken mess (which
was nice). Cocktails went down like a Spanish bird on a UCC midfielder and
the owner of the bar made more than he normally does in a year on sales of
B52s alone. Phil O asks the barman for a really nice cocktail and so after
searching below the bar, the barman pulls out these potted plants from
under the counter. He crushes the leaves and needless to say Phil was a
bit suspicious of exactly what he was giving him... An hour later Phil was
hammered and did not question the barman as to what was in there. They
turned out to be mint leaves and basil, so he was told. Ronan suddenly
becomes in good form and spends EUR1,000,000 on rounds of B52s. Rumours of
Fast Eddies paying very well begin to circulate.
Lenny and Jim have some sort of 'incident'. Bizarrely, Lenny pinches
Jim. More bizarrely, Jim then nicks one of Lenny's shoes, and proceeds to
hide it in the bar. Almost incredibly bizarrely, Jim then hides by sitting
down on the floor between the bar and some barstools on which Gene and Sue
were sitting. The girls ensure Jim is supplied with vodka, while we amuse
ourselves with the sight of one-shoed Lenny running up and down the pub
going nuts looking for his shoe... and every time he seemed to stop and
rant for a minutes with the two girls... Hours of fun. Literally!
Eventually, we made an attempt to go to a different niteclub, but fail,
and end up back in the old reliable by the harbour. Lenny gets kicked out
for doing his dead arm thing. Fortunately, the bouncer is quite sound and
Lenny is allowed retain his drink, and the lads are allowed to go out to
him and even bring him more vodka. Dave meanwhile has decided to try and
establish a rapport with one of the barmaids, in order to get better deals
on our vodkas and coke. Things go well, and despite dave pinching her
nipple, she sorts us out later in the night when we are all broke.
After the nightclub, it's only the Lemon gang left. We avoid the manky
kebabs but decide we need more drink - after all it's only 6.30... Jer
goes back to the hotel. Jim, Lenny and Dave decide to stroll into a random
hotel and pretend we are residents. We spot a massive sign on a hotel
nearby saying 'Hotel Melia'. Perfect! After a good luck spit on a random
van, we enter the lobby of Hotel Melia. The first warning sign is the
expensive looking chandeliers and generally plush decor... The
fancy-dressed porter looks at us, we say 'Ola' and try and look cool. We
enter some sort of bar/lobby area and sit down. Within literally 10
seconds, we are surrounded by a team of security staff and are instructed
to leave. Jim takes out his room key and says 'Hotel Maya???' A bouncer
says 'No, Hotel Melia!' Jim fashions a blank stare and says 'Hotel
Maya???' 'No, Hotel Melia!' says the bouncer. In unison, we all say
'Ahhhh, Hotel Melia!' and chortle at our own silliness. We make suitably
apologetic gestures and begin to leave. Lenny turns around to one of them
though and says 'Yerra just give us one beer!' No joy, shocker.
We're still not willing to go home though. We head down to the beach.
It is now actually sunny, and people are up and about. In fact, we see a
young woman out for a morning jog. She runs past us so Lenny and Dave
decide to jog behind her for a while... The two lads last about ten
seconds before collapsing onto the sand in exhaustion. They content
themselves having a sand fight. Meanwhile, the jogger returns past Jim and
hurls abuse at him in Spanish, presumably directed at the lads!
After this, we realise that it is truly pointless staying out any
longer so we head back to Hotel Maya for breakfast. It wasn't lost on us
that we strolled straight into the dining room and helped ourselves to
breakfast without even the hint of being asked to show we were staying in
the hotel... Breakfast was memorable for the mess Dave created, due to his
using an orange juice glass as a 'spoon' for his coco-pops. I went to up
to our room and woke Jer to tell him the hilarious story of Hotel Melia,
but he didn't give a shit.
Sunday June 9th
The craziness of the previous night resulted in the lads rising around
twelve for their game at half past... Needless to say, we had missed the
coach to the pitch. Nightmare taxi journeys ensued. There was a bit of a
fiasco as the match started early - we had barely 11 there and certainly
hadn't gotten around to organising a line-up! We started in utter chaos
and were 2-0 down rather quickly to the 'fun boys' from Holland. After the
initial chaos college settled down and produced some good but hung-over
hockey and Phil S neatly put away a short corner to make it 2-1 at half
time. Another rousing team talk spurred us into hatred for the fun boys,
can't remember why really but they did seem like knobs... Despite our best
efforts though, we failed to score again and so lost the third/fourth play
off. Ronan had come on late on and increased his touch count to four - it
would have been five but a pass by Jim hopped over his stick due to a bump
on the pitch. Meanwhile, the ladies played really well in their final but
lost also.
Beer then fuelled college's exploits as they settled down to watch the
final between the Gibraltar and Alicante. Will we ever forget Gibraltar?
The Gibraltarians were inside in the hall with a blackboard before
their game with Alicante - their coach, the eagle-eyed Romero Escudosa had
been planning the game in his head all night. Unable to sleep he had taken
a walk around 6am where he dreamt of his star player Rodriguez 'One on
One' Vaqueros scoring the winner against the hosts. Oh what it meant for
them to beat the hosts, the Spanish giants with their international all
stars. In an interview with G-TV that day he had played down any notions
of the team being weaker now that their only 'world class' player had been
sent home. Indeed Royez Kenos had departed for home after stating that the
pitch was not up to scratch and he had called the Gibraltar coach a dirty
Spanish bastard. His nerves were at him. He pondered the ramifications of
losing, he would surely be sacked. He began to sweat and returned to the
hotel to get his team up for their morning warm up.
Along a similar theme to singing about the old geezers from Bedford, we
thought we'd sing a few songs about the Gibraltar lads. 'You're Spanish
and you know you are' was the one that sprung to mind... unfortunately we
didn't realise that this was a fairly big insult to the hotheated lads
with their Latin - excuse me, I mean British - temperment... Anyway, one
of them went nuts.. 'Ok one on one, I'll take you all on, you say I'm
Spanish, I kill you blah blah blah, yakity yak yak!' We apologise and move
away from the fence between us and the nutbag. Thus, the final begins with
strong support for Alicante. In response the Alicante lads cruised to
victory and gave the Gilbraltar lads a good thumping. Afterwards there is
mass jersey swapping. Jer and Lenny somehow manage to get highly sought
after Alicante jerseys - which Jer has since worn to every single summer
hockey and training session... Jim gets a nice Alicante seconds shirt, but
it's too small. Bugga.
Back home to the hotel then for the usual ritual of lift queue versus
empty bar. By now, the Lemon Gang had a highly refined form of 'bant'
going on. Any wittily bitter comment was rewarded by a fist clench, and
bad joke was ruthlessly punished. Also, our voices were all absolutely
fucked, which resulted in the 'no-repeats' rule. Bitterness for any of the
lads missing out on a quip. The net result was bant of an extremely high
quality, such as: Dave: So I suppose we'll have to get someone to replace
John John Bitter as the bitter fucker... Jer: I suppose Lenny's the
obvious choice.. Jim: No bitter man! Anyway, there we were enjoying our
bottles of lager and luckily oblivious to our own stink of sweat. 
Jim was in the middle of a story but was getting bitter as the
lads kept interrupting it. Eventually Lenny said 'Lads it sounds like it
might be a funny story, let's let him get on with it!' so Jim returns to
the tale. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Jer erupts into hysterics.
We're all baffled, Jer can't even talk. Eventually he manages to point
over at the bar, and there was Pete spinning around on a bar stool with a
look of confused innocence on his face. It was absolutely hilarious. And
so, Crazy Pete was born! (His craziness was confirmed the next day when he
went snorkelling in the pool...)
Anyway, Pete's arrival in the bar indicated that people were ready to
go out for munch, and as such time for us to get ready. There is a minor
panic as Jim loses his wallet - this turns up in Jim's stick bag SHOCKER
so there is no need for Jim to take Alex the Lyon lad up on his offer of
getting his team to comb the bar for it!
In town, the group
split as some went to the Tapas Bar and other to the Pizzerias and
Mexicans on the strip. The tapas bar was brilliant - for a flat fee of
EURnegligible they would keep bringing out plates of food until we had
enough, with lots and lots of beer to boot. Great craic, especially trying
to keep the jugs of beer at our end of the table. It's fair to say that we
went in their sober, and came out stuffed and demented with a new found
buddy for life, in the form of the Argentinian waiter!
After, it was back to the Bud bar again, more cocktails. Damo's buddy,
Florent, became great buddies with Elmo and they invented a new drinking
game called '3 fingers'. Basically, whoever was playing could simply
announce '3 fingers' at random and everyone else would have to drink 3
fingers... Of course then everyone else would get revenge by saying '3
fingers' and the net result was several five minute pints. Luckily,
Florent insisted on buying all the beer, which was bon, as they say in
France.
The Bedford codgers were there also, they also bought drink and talked
shite with us. The really old looking guy that had made fools of Lenny and
Dave and smacked Jim in the face turned out to be a doctor. He joined in
our discussion of piss-boners*, contributing the fact that the average
member can hold about 25ml of fluid.
*Piss-boner. n. Male genitalia in a state of artificial arousal due to
the storage of soon-to-be-released piss caused by drinking.
Later Elmer had an amusing incident involving one of the two non-Lyon
Lyon girls - one of them sat down on Elmer suggestively, Elmer thought he
was in until he realised a few minutes later that he couldn't remember if
it had been Caroline or Claire... Bugga...(Edit by Elmer, sadly this is
not true, Elmer realised he was not in when he realised that the lady in
question sitting rather suggestively on his lap was actually Florant's
girlfriend and thus any advances by Elmer were permenantly put on hold.
Simon even checked my 'state of mind' when he patted my 'lower area' to
check if I had any 'rumblings' down below!!!!. All clear which was a
relief cause quite a crowd was assembled around me. And I do remember
which one it was, it was the one from Northern Ireland!!)
And again, back to our haunt on the waterfront. For the first time, Jim
notices the big screen on which they showed pictures of us. Lenny gets
kicked out again for his dead-arm thing. Most people go home but a
hardcore of the lads are still their at the end pooling cash to buy vodkas
and coke. Dave heroically chats up a cute Spaniard despite having no
Spanish, and the girl not speaking any English. Tough going, but all
credit to the lad, he got a quick score for his trouble. That was it
really, we made it back to the hotel without any bizarre incidents.
Monday June 10th
In the morning there are emotional goodbyes to Damien and Team Lyon.
The sight of Damo riding their minibus like a surfboard is a sight those
who witnessed will never forget. No hockey today so people lazed by the
pool. Under Phil O's guidance, we played more waterpolo, at which Gally
was very good in goal and at which Jim was bad.
A few of the lads go into town for a while. Can't remember why to be
honest. Gally and Jim end up taking the train/tram thingy up the coast for
a while. Very boring to be honest.
Later, a game of football was called for around 6pm and the lads headed
off to find a pitch. There was a concrete one complete with markings and
goals near a block of flats so off we went. Small boys, on the municipal
pitch, goalposts for goalposts, enduring imagine, wasn't it? After a
tiring game in the sun, we returned for a welcome swim. On the way Phil O
spots a genuine shack built against a hill.
That night the girls went shopping and the lads went for pizza. We all
met up again in, or rather outside, the Bud bar. For some reason, an
elderly resident above the bar decides to take exception to our presence
and empties the contents of her watering can on us. She rants in Spanish
but all we catch is policio. The barman thus herds us inside for a
'lock-in'. Great craic until someone nicks Pepsi from a crate and we are
kicked out in shame.
Insert by Baz Jnr
For the record the incident where we got kicked out of the bud bar
is a bit off. the woman next door started shouting at us from to keep it
down. I believe either Simon or Eamon (unexpectedly) then told her to fuck
herself at which stage she went back inside, presumably to carry out his
request. She reappeared shortly thereafter with a watering can to pour
water on us and shouting that she was ringing the police(no idea how we
translated this but we didn't really believe her anyway). The barman
didn't want to upset the neighbours so he took us inside for a lock-in.
Everytime lenny asked anyone where his shoe was we all kept telling him we
last saw Jim running to the toilet with it and if Jim wasn't in there then
his shoe definitely was. He somehow believed us everytime we said this.
the pepsi stealing incident was i believe instigated by cathy in her
efforts to emulate elmer by burping scaffolding before finally succeeding
and then moving on to the much more difficult task of burping the phrase
"i love to bumfuck" We got kicked out when we suddenly realised that the
barman had dissappeared and after a quick look outside spotted 4 police
cars parked on the pedestrianised street outside. the barman was being
written up for disturbing the peace with our noise inside so we decided we
should do the decent thing and leave. he waved us goodbye and said he'd
see us the following night. it only emerged the following morning exactly
how much we had stolen between us (pepsi, posters, glasses, pool balls) so
we decided he might not be quite so happy to see us again.
End of insert
Promising that we'd see the barman tomorrow, we headed for the
nightclub and Jer drunkenly swayed the night away, while Jim did the
sidestep (you all know Jer's drunken sway and Jim's crazy dance, crazy).
Lenny gets kicked out again, unbelievably, for the dead arm thing - the
problem is that he keeps hitting people with it!
Tuesday June 11th
Ireland were playing
Saudi Arabia at 12.30. We had done some research (probably in the form of
asking Fondalastair) where would be the best place to go, so we all headed
up to a place called O'Connells. A good few of the lads arrived a tad late
due to barely being able to get up, in turn due to the hangover getting
cumulatively worse each day. Anyway we all made it there by about ten
minutes into the game. It's a bit of a squash to for us all to have enough
legroom and still be able to see the TV but we just about manage it. 
Fondalastair has a
tricolour for the occasion, and we're all wearing green stuff. Jim had
been particularly hungover, but after about half a bottle of Heineken is
suddenly unhungover and demented again. We soon take the lead so it's time
to break out the chants:
To the tune of Jackie's Army:
We're all here in Alicante,
We're
all part of the country,
And we're drinking Heineken,
And we're
watching Ireland win,
Cause country (some sang Ireland) are the
greatest football team.
Ole Ole Ole.
To the tune of the Lone Ranger:
Give it up, give it up, give it up
the Duff.
Stand up if you're standing up etc.
Then there were Jim's ones:
"You can go and stick your oil up yer
arse"
and the unforgettable
"What's it like to fuck a camel?"
I must point out that I didn't know there were actually some Saudis
also in the bar watching the match...
Anyway, Ireland win 3-0,
sending us into spasms of joy. Lenny and Gally set off down the street in
a mad celebration. Jim rings John Enright to try and think of a chant that
will incorporate the fact that we're playing Spain next. We come up with
'Viva Irlanda, Puta Espana!' which is great because it rhymes and we think
it means 'Go on Ireland, down with Spain' in a sort of light-hearted
manner.
Later, we all leave O'Connell's and headed for food, meeting people
from Drumknockballytemplebanshanewtwopothousebeg on the street. One of
them looked like Hans Moleman from the Simpsons. More celebrations and on
to BK for some whoppers. We notice that the beer in BK is cheaper than the
bar. Some of us seriously consider spending the day on the piss in Burger
King... truly we had entered the Twilight Zone.
However the beer is manky and the drunken euphoria of the match is
wearing off and we're all knackered again. So we go back to the hotel for
a swim then back to bed for another couple of hours! Gally arrives back
with some local porn, girls peeing and drinking the pee, fisting,
shemales, filth, S&M, the works. The girls appear more interested in
it than the lads and a debate among them begins. Sue seems particularly
interested in the porn for some reason. After more banterment and
stuffage, we all get ready for the last night out. Jess mentions her sore
throat, something that was to cut her night short, despite having an
extensive array of medical supplies.
After munch, the posse met up in O'Connell's for beer and banterage.
There is a failed Mexican wave of 'live' (sceptics among the group ruined
the atmosphere) and Phil O did the Agnes and Betty Wildebeest sketch, with
a little help from Simon. Most of us are struggling to be honest at this
stage, but we're soldiering on since it's the last night. Dave and Lenny
were in a round with Jer and Jim, and they dissappear into the bar to get
it in - Jim and Jer are told not to come in and spoil the surprise of what
was to come. About ten minutes later the lads come out with 4
'Pintnadrop's (pint of Guinness and a drop (separate) of whiskey).
Hilarious indeed (Lenny's old man 'Hmmmmmmmnya...pintnadrop!' is
excellent) but hardly what we needed in the circumstances - manky foreign
stout and about twice the average size shot of whisky! Jer indeed has to
abandon his shot, possibly Elmer filled in and gave it a good home.
Anyway despite all that, we did indeed manage to get drunk for the 2nd
time that day! Impressive. Again it was off to the nightclub to boogie the
night away. There is a group of Irish birds from somewhere obscure like
Carlow and Lenny scores with one of them. He has some sort of misadventure
with her involving a boat but I can't remember what exactly happened.
In the nightclub we chant like there's no tomorrow, including our
briilliantly witty 'Viva Irlanda, Puta Espana' chant. Suddenly, we found
ourselves outside being confronted by Lenny's angry bouncer buddy. It
turns out that 'Puta Espana' means 'Spain is a whore' and it is a grievous
national insult. The bouncer is on the verge of kicking the shit out of us
until a random (and incredibly smelly) Spaniard called José who used to
live in Blarney sees that it's all a misunderstanding and sorts out the
mess. José has some American buddies. As usual, they are unbelievaly
stupid, so provide amusement for us. We drink the night away in peace
thereafter, and indeed Lenny gets a photo taken with his nemesis the
bouncer. Beautiful. Fond farewells from Fondalastair as he fondles us for
the final time.
Wednesday June 12th
Our final day saw most of us lying around the pool until the airport. A
game broke out of animal impressions amongst the lads, after Dave did a
hilarious alligator impression. Gally topped it off with his seal
impression after some funny ones from Simon (monkey and bee), Phil O
(wildebeest, elephant and pigeon) and Derry.
At the airport, Lenny looks and acts like a child on speed in his
shorts with his football. We amuse ourselves taking it off him,
undoubtedly seriously annoying the normal punters... The flight home was
dodgy to say the least but we made it home to the adulation of the
cheering crowds welcoming us back.
So there it was, seven nights of craziness during which we managed to
get drunk about ten times, play some hockey, see some sights (ok, scratch
that one), get fondled, swim, and get a tan. An absolutely brilliant week!
Okiedoke, we'll leave it there, live.
Written by Jim with help from Phil & BazJnr and edited for viewing
by Elmer
Alicante!..... poisonous monkeys, very small chaps, but
immensely strong...very...usually...har! 
very
sharply on a piece of furniture...aah!...the whole thing was made
completely out of rubber!...