Caister 2009: Now that the mists have cleared

We arrived at Caister at 1pm, hungover from the evening before and in no position to partake in athletic competition of any kind - little did we realise that this scene would be a microcosm of our entire weekend.

After (what was then) the longest three hours of our collective lives, 4pm rolled around, and we found out our fixtures for the next morning - not only had we avoided most of the "big guns", we also didn't have to play until 11am, with all games at Waveney Sports Centre... I almost cuddled Paul Wilde then and there.

With the fixtures in hand, tour t-shirts having been given out, takeaways having been devoured and latecomers having arrived we settled down for a quiet night at Caister.

If only.

In between catching up with some of the other teams in our vicinity, challenging our 11am opponents to a drinking competition (in which they declined to partake) and round after round after round of beer pong (or cider pong, or in Keith's case WKD Blue-pong), flippy cup and jaeger bombs, we realised that Andy Binns and jaegermeister are not fit to be seen together in reputable, public places.

Thankfully we were at Caister, and while it was certainly public, it is hardly "reputable".

We now had a crowd of 11 of us, with the nine players, Keith our table official, and Dee (who we had effectively kidnapped from the Baddow Eagles, and deemed to be our physio for the weekend) and we subsequently found that in addition to not being able to stomach jaeger, Binnsy loved playing to a crowd.


Owing to over-exuberance on his part (and by over-exuberance, I mean getting Carter in a headlock and pouring a can of Carlsberg over him), and being unable to undertake the mandatory ten pressups that were then demanded of him, it was deemed that what Andy really needed was a dose of "contributions" from the team. After passing the cup round and all of us making our contributions, Binnsy went for it...I think I may have seen the exact moment when Andy's night fell to pieces, partway through contributions, his eyes began moving independently of one another like an iguana, his shiny face and alan shearer balding head started turning claret and he then proceeded to run to the fence to spew forth approximately £40 worth of (my) alcohol. Splendid.


Upon eventually making our way to the on-site club, Binnsy became more and more the centre of everybody's attention, so he believed. By this point, he was fully cut-in-half drunk. We refused to allow him to drink snakebite and black for fear of the purple frothy shower that would come our way, and he was once again telling me how much he loved me, which is normally funny (because he's shedded and everybody likes boobs) but isn't so great when I am facing the prospect of once again having to sleep in the same building as him.

As we entered the club, Andy saw Shakey. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but over the minutes that passed, the massive man-hug moved closer and closer to the dance floor, only to be broken by Shake, at which point Andy began attempting to bodypop.

This was not a pretty sight.

Shake replied in kind by busting out the robot, and the first ever Bulldogs 18-stone and over dance-off began in earnest. Owing to the fact that Andy had consumed enough alcohol to drown several men his own size, it was fair to say that he was acting as if he were completely unaware of the surrounding (unimpressed) onlookers whilst simultaneously playing up to them, and after "doing the Christian", he moved to serenade Shakey with the "Shakey Shuffle". A full two verses of the randomly-adapted hokey-cokey later, and with Shakey admitting defeat Andy's next opponent became apparent... only she didn't want to dance.

A girl from Erkenwald (with whom Shakey will be forever connected at Caister) took umbrage to "another team mugging off Shakey", and decided that she wanted to wrestle the Binnsy Bear as if she were Jackie Moon trying to raise some money for the tropics. After ten minutes of frantic dancefloor wrestling action, featuring numerous power slams, and Binnsy getting kicked in the groin on occasions so numerous that I lost count and found myself in tears of laughter on a sticky nightclub floor, I simply had to raise the midget girl's arms in victory, aside from anything else, Binnsy was asking myself and Stilts (being the two wrestling geeks on tour) how best to execute a pile-driver, and I was still conscious enough to worry about the consequences.

Not taking his defeat too well, Andy decided to move into the realms of aggressive drinking, almost attacking each beer-which is hardly the best of ideas when you're already cut-in-half drunk. Trying the best to act like a team, several of us decided to attempt to match Andy beer-for-beer. What followed is all I can recall for the evening:

Several across-bar evil looks between Erkenwald midget girl wrestler and the Binnsy bear

Us finding out Matt Ward was refereeing our second game, and plying him with drinks

Billy deciding that me standing at a urinal surrounded by 6'6" plus black guys would be the ideal time to start talking about the size of my cock

Billy and I deciding that the best way to settle our differences in this case would be to wipe our hands on one another after each of our toilet trips

Sam Saggers disappearing for an hour, coming back sopping wet and covered in stinging nettle bumps

All of us finding out it only takes one beer to get George drunk - we're just not sure if it's the ninth or the tenth

Some time after 1am and before 3am, we decided we should head back to the chalet for some sleep, we walked past the chalet of our early morning opponents-the Huntingdon Hawks-and realised they were all tucked up in bed, and that we might be in a spot of bother. Stilts decided to have a ciggie, and was joined outside by the scorer for Huntingdon who was remarking on how unbelievably lame it was for their entire team to be tucked up already, with which we agreed and went about banging on windows yelling "wake up, douchebags". These two were joined by Binnsy-in his boxers, doing jumping jacks.

It was at this point that the early-evening takeaway decided it really didn't like the view, or perhaps just that it didn't like being in my stomach, or even my instestines, and thought it would be better for all concerned if it left me, now. What happened to my body over the next six hours can only be described as an experience that I would not wish on my worst enemies. I know that I destroyed the chalet toilet, which is usually something which would make me proud. Unfortunately, I had shat out all of my energy and was unable to declare that "I am Shiva, destroyer of worlds".

We awoke early on Saturday, with most of us having had approximately an hour or three's sleep and completely unable to think about breakfast. Saggers bounded in full of energy and stinging nettle bumps at about 7am. He was confused, he'd been feeding his pet lizard a cornish pastie before he left to try and hook-up with some girls, and wondered where it was. Christian rolled over on the sofa bed, told him "I ate it", farted, and went back to sleep - team bonding at its best ladies and gentlemen.

We left for Waveney as early as possible, pointing out along the way the bumper stickers we'd put on other people's minibuses and cars, and regaling other tales of wonderment from the night before. Upon arrival at Waveney, we saw Colchester Hornets (a local div 2 National League Team for whom a few of us had played at Junior Level) getting panned by Rocco's Raiders, how fortunate, we thought that we managed to avoid these two.

Huntingdon were definately by far the more awake team at the tip, "racing" out to a quick lead (as quickly as you can score, maybe 3 baskets in six minutes), and maintaining it for most of the half while everyone pointed and laughed at us all for wearing neon pink and white headbands. We took a timeout with a few minutes left in the quarter, and down by 7 points, 13-6. We seemed to wake up in the next few minutes, outscoring the Hawks 4-0 and moving the ball like an actual basketball team (even if we had to get one of the refs to inbound the ball for us occasionally). Then the match came alive in the last thirty seconds of the half, with myself and Saggers both connecting from three and their coach matching us both, including a prayer off the glass at the buzzer to go into the second half with the Hawks leading us 19-16.

It seems that their long-range prayer might have been just the thing to wake us up, as we spent the short halftime break supping on sports drinks and talking about being more aggressive in the second half. Some of us (Stevie, Saggers, Billy, George) took this opportunity to remove neon pink headbands, while others (okay, just me then) decided now would be a smart time to take more stomach settlers and anti-diahorreah pills. The second half flew by, with us scoring 35 points in only 12 minutes, and beating the Hawks by more than twenty. The highlights were few and far between, but Binnsy's two hungover underarm airball free-throws, followed by Stevie trying to call bank-off the ceiling-on his own free-throw attempt certainly stick out for me.

We followed this win up like any serious athlete would-with a trip to the bar, then McDonalds. We got back courtside with 5 minutes left in the other game in our group - and Huntingdon Hawks were getting blown out by UCC Old Skool... it seemed that these boys weren't playing around, and we would have a very tough game to close the group stages.

However, we had been told in the meantime that SEAE (the other team in our group) had been demolished by UCC, and were in fact the group of little people clustered in the corner of the gym. With the Hawks at 0-2, we only had to beat SEAE for a place in Sunday's playoffs.

Hats off to SEAE, they worked hard, and they made Christian panic into two timeouts, the first to tell us to get a hand up in their guard's face, the second to tell us to stop showing them up. It was one of those games, when we turned it on, they couldn't live with us (as was evident from 26 points from Saggers in about 15 minutes of action), so we slowed down, played around and tried to have fun-which was when we were accused of "belittling them". We switched back to playing hard, and we're told to ease off again. It was just one of those games, forget the fact we won by something like 40, we couldn't really win that game regardless of the score, we just needed to get it out of the way and get out of there as quickly as possible.

I trotted over to the bar just as the final whistle went between United and Arsenal, and decided this might just be a great weekend.

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to convince UCC into playing out a 0-0 draw and shooting free-throws for the win, or even just going for a half-court shootout from the start. Whilst they played along, giggled and joked with us, we cuold see that they had no interest in this whatsoever, and intended to play a game of basketball-which would have been fantastic, were the referee to have allowed this to occur.

Throughout the first two games, we had had one good official in each, the constant had been the other official, a female, of whom I'm confident in stating that the most intelligent thing to ever leave her mouth was in all probabilities, a penis.

Having her with another inconsistent referee pretty much signed our death warrant.

Combine this with the fact that our jumpshots weren't dropping and we had no overbearing inside threat and this was easily the longest 24 minutes of my life. Our troubles worsened with Stevie dropping with an injury, and me spitting my dummy out at everyone in timeouts. It was not a pretty game, and the fact that we "only" lost by single digits was nothing short of miraculous.

Nevertheless, we regrouped and decided that being that we started the day with the ambition to win A GAME, and had qualified for tomorrow's playoffs, there was no reason to be down-hearted.

We returned to camp following a brief stop at Tesco wherein the essentials were purchased-beer and junk food for everyone else, ice, frozen peas, diahorreah pills and lucozade for me. I then proceeded to ice (and pea) every appendage which came to mind for the next hour or so while people came and went, the chalet became (vaguely) tidier and throwbacks were donned for the evening's drinking.

I was on my fourth beer when I realised I could no longer do the whole drinking thing, and in a fit of shame, bowed out of the evening's drinking, seemingly at the perfect time....as Stevie took this opportunity to thank me for organising the tour, and inform me that they'd got me a little present. Being that Binnsy and Christian were wearing fairy wings as the "d!ckheads of the day" for their Friday and Saturday efforts, I was worried, because I knew I was getting stitched up next.

Stevie then proceeded to open a pack of dummies, and inform all and sundry that I either had to be sucking or drinking, and if I wasn't, I was to be bought a shot.

As fantastic an idea as this was, my growling stomach was trying to kick back out the second dose of campsite takeaway in two days, and I politely declined further alcohol, amid accusations of being a pussy. Walking to the on-site night club I flitted between gagging on the dummy and dry heaving (presumably on the takeaway).

Needless to say, following on from my gagging on a half inch of dummy in my mouth, I can only tip my hat even more to erotic actresses and girls in general for fellating without gavomiting, as the dummy clearly proved I wouldn't be able to act out any Mommy-baby-type fantasies, nor would I be fit to be anybody's prison bitch.

We were busy enjoying ourselves, cheering whenever we heard Mick Byrne mention "newcomers, Bury St. Edmunds Bulldogs" and the fact we were 2-1 from the group stage and could leave Caister (at worst) at 2-2, which wouldn't be too bad for our first time there. Of course, the lads were also taking this opportunity to partake in yet another dance-off, as well as constantly mocking me for my inability to even look at anything alcoholic.

Then the worst thing I could possibly think of happened, amidst the excitement of qualifying, we forgot that we'd probably have to play a good team as a second-place qualifier, and indeed we did- as we drew Rocco's Raiders (who had beaten Colchester by twenty-something) for an early Sunday morning tip-off. Billy turned to the bar behind us and seemed to order three shots of everything... we shared his pain.

I looked enviously over towards UCC until I realised they had drawn the winner of the game Colchester were involved in at 2pm at Waveney, so I took consolation in the fact that we'd have been screwed either way.

I decided now was a good time to tuck tail and head home, and quietly slipped away while everyone was pre-occupied with Baddow dancing to the Baywatch song in full fancy dress on stage. Being that I'd already seen naked Wenty chasing Saggers around the dance-off circle that night, I saw no need to see any more of him, and snuck away.

Safely back at the chalet, curled up, shivering from the numerous ice-packs I'd re-attached and once more dry-heaving a chicken and mushroom pie, I managed a whopping five hours sleep - a personal best for Caister.

I woke up hangover free (another Caister first) and walked into the living room to find Saggers and Christian spooning. I was glad to see they'd made up, they make such a nice couple.

We packed everything up and headed off to the Benjamin Britten School to face our inevitable demise at the hands of Rocco's Raiders.

It seemed for some time, as if we might be forfeiting the game, being that only myself, Stilts, Christian and Binnsy were making up the shortest lay-up line in history until two minutes before tip-off, when Saggers, Billy and George came bounding in, along with Stevie who was clearly too injured (and fully clothed) to play and Keith, slowly making his way to the table.

The first five minutes were a complete blur, and following a Raider's time-out we looked across to the scoreboard to see we were only down by two, 13-15. We continued to trade baskets throughout the remainder of the half, clearly wearing ourselves out in the process, and going in down by four (and somehow coming back out down by six). It was as good as it got for us. Raiders really were a decent team, and in the first two minutes of the half they proved it, running up the lead comfortably into double digits in no time.

The rest of the match was a game of two drills, theirs was a full-court layup drill, whilst ours was a half-court shooting drill.

The fact that George willingly took the fairy wings after airballing three three-pointers and having a dunk attempt pinned to the backboard was a credit to him. Binnsy going 1 for 9 in the final game was a magnificent showing, being that it almost doubled his season's shooting percentage. Stilts also managed to play his usual game of pong, using both hands as paddles at all times.

Essentially, we bowed out the same way we came in, heaving up every shot we liked the look of, wearing neon pink headbands and being horribly hungover. Having only lost by twenty-five was miraculous, as our hungover group of bench monkeys had matched the result of Colchester's National League team (albeit that they too were horribly hungover) from 24-hours earlier.

We showered up and made our way to Waveney, where we spent most of the day cheering for Shakey to get subbed in from the Erks bench... alas, our cheers were not met with a positive result.

Having no more games to play, and no more energy to watch, we made our way home, already noting that due to Caister being so inexplicably late this season, we probably only have eleven months until the sequel....

Until Next Time.