Dublin - RCC tours go international!!

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Early September saw me join the Rollesby Cricket Club boys on their annual cricket tour, this time they were pushing the boundaries with their first international effort and we were winging our way to Dublin.

I had got myself a dawn flight out from Bristol and, travelling light, I had soon made my way into the city centre in order to start exploring. Blessed with good weather I was able to take in O'Connell Street and its giant spire, wander through Trinity College and then chill out in St Stephens Park.

In the early afternoon I headed over to our hotel to meet up with the RCC boys who had all flown in from Norwich in the afternoon. This being the first day on tour, all of the boys had started on the beers very early that day - a fact that was going to prove costly for Messrs Alger Jnr and Duxbury later in the evening!

After catching up in the hotel bar and enjoying quite a few beers we headed out towards the city centre, some of us by more of a direct route than others as Alger Jnr decided to take a detour by running along the banks of the Liffey hammering on the bonnets of all of the cars he came across - needless to say they were all occupied!! We tracked down a curry house that would let us in and got some food down us, before moving on into Temple Bar. By this time Dux and Steve-O had been packed off in taxis back to the hotel, but even with losing our two drunkest members the bouncers of Dublin were not inclined to allow a group of battered Englishmen into their bars and so we ended up stomping round the streets of Temple Bar trying in vain to get into places before eventually giving up and heading back to the place we knew we would be loved - the hotel bar!

After a cracking full English breakfast the next morning our pimp wagon of a minibus was awaiting to take us to our first match which was..unfortunately for a Dublin tour, in Kilkenney - over two hours away! We eventually arrived and it turned out to be a very picturesque ground and the opposition seemed to be a good bunch of lads. We drew straws for the batting positions and I was fortunate enough to get the No.2 and so trotted out to open the batting. After Golden Arm negotiated the first over for a maiden, it was my honour the score the first international runs in RCC history - and what better way to bring it up than a Chinese cut down to fine leg! I was eventually out for 14 and we went onto post 125-odd. The runs were soon knocked off by the opposition, mainly thanks to skipper Alger's cunning plan to bowl his own brand of loopy spin which wrapped up the map double quick and saw us get to the bar sharpish!

The bar we made it to was on a golf course and gave us cracking views of the Irish countryside to enjoy alongside our drinks. The Sun set and we clambered back into the minibus to begin the journey home. With us all pretty tanked up there seemed no better way to mark the journey home than with a huge sing-a-long to a variety of 80's classics! The tuneless warbling was only occasionally interrupted by the toilet stops which saw us all lined up in unison at the side of the Irish highways!

After another fine fry-up the next morning it started to dawn on us that our trusty "fixer" who had supposedly arranged our Sunday game had not done us proud and the team we were scheduled to play had unfortunately never heard of us - and so on this RCC cricket tour there was not going to be any cricket played by us!

Instead, some of us chose to head across to Croke Park to watch the Hurling finals which proved a great sport to watch and a huge amount of fun. Meeting back at the hotel we got ourselves sorted and headed out to an awesome restaurant for a really top drawer meal to mark our final night on tour, before winding down with some beers until the early hours.

On our final morning a group of us were able to visit the famous Dublin Zoo before the RCC all had to reassemble back at the hotel in order to go and get their flight. It brought the curtain down on a cracking few days - unfortunately for a cricket tour we didn't actually get to enjoy all that much cricket, but for banter and drinking it was definitely first rate and I'm looking forward to next year's!

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Photos

River Liffey
O'Connell street crossing the river

Curry
The only place which would let RCC in!!