You are here: Match Reports / Islay Beach 8th/9th/10th June 2007
| Last weekend saw the Hills make their first ever trip across to Islay for the Beach Rugby tournament. A strong squad (socially anyway) of Paterson, Torbett, Kitchener, Todd, Bell and Ross had been compiled for the journey up on Friday, with reinforcements and the girls team arriving on the Saturday morning. Friday saw us leave for Kennacraig with high expectations (of getting drunk, presumably), an open-mind of what to expect and most unusually for us, on time. Kitch was planning to bring his van across on the boat for his bedroom, but quickly binned this idea on arrival at Kennacraig, so he could start drinking earlier. Hawaiian T-shirts and m%$*c hats were issued by Kitch and the theme of the weekend put into place. The ferry crossing of 2 and a half hours was ample time for the party to demolish their carry-out with Todd, appointed “team-boy” in the absence of Dewar, doing a sterling job of opening the beers and making sure they arrived regularly. There was a point when Bell thought he saw another one of our regulars, Fisken, from the ferry – though it turned out to just be a whale unfortunately. Our arrival to Islay saw us take the short walk down the road to our base at the White Hart Hotel, justifying the decision to leave the van. The hosts had kindly put on a BBQ for us which we tucked into (especially Bell, predictably) before pitching the latest little Hughenden in the Hotel’s beer garden. The Friday night had begun to escape the tour party by this time and we drunkenly proceeded to the hotel bar for games of pool and disco dancing before relocating to the Church Hall about 50m down the road for more disco dancing into the small hours. Memories of this are even more vague though this scribe is told that the highlights included Bell’s fine disco press-ups and Paterson and Todd ending up in a heap on the dance floor. Todd had done a splendid job by this time ensuring that non-stop drink arrived, despite our protestations to the contrary. Awaking on Saturday morning drew surprise in the tent of Ross, Paterson and Todd in that Ross was, in fact, not there and had been replaced by Torbett. This was quickly cleared up by Torbett who said that Kitch’s farting was absolutely intolerable and caused him to relocate tents immediately. Bell was too drunk to notice the stench, however, and slept through it with Kitch. Bell had also created his own ‘facility’ in the porch area of the tent, further justifying Torbett’s decision to move. The absence of Ross was also quickly explained by Torbett – he had been up drinking all night with a couple of the other teams, sparking a torrent of rumours and Chinese whispers about him, none of which were even remotely true. After a sobering game of beach cricket we waited expectantly for our reinforcements to arrive. Unfortunately, big Grant hadn’t been able to acquire any more players and, even more unfortunately, had fallen down the stairs in the ferry and picked up ‘balloon-ankle’ and was thus unavailable himself, barely able to walk. The girls arrived in one-piece, as did a Hills ‘old boy’ team made up of legendary figures of Dunn, Carpet, Brummit, McNaughton and a few more. The pitches had by this time been set up and it was clear this was a game for the heavier lads – they were roughly the size of a tennis court with games 5-a-side and 4 mins each way. Torbett in particular not looking forward to this especially as he had just shook off Black-foot. Our first game was a hard fought 2-all draw with hosts Islay, who featured a man with hair almost as silver as our own Cahoon. However, our 5 player pool was down to 4 as Todd had to join big Grant in the ice-bath (well the sea) with a dead-leg. With Hills wandering how they would continue, cometh the hour, cometh Bell. Leaving the burger circuit for some proper action, Bell declared himself fit to play coming back from injury 2 months early. With us restored to 5 games were won against local team Bruichladdish (6-0), the Army, who cheated by arriving by Helicopter, (3-1) and Kintyre (5- 2). Stand-out for Hills were Bell, who was all over the place and loving his return to ‘the bosh’ and Kitch, who scored the try of the tournament against the army carrying at least 3 of their players over the line with him. No mean-feat on sand. This set-up a pool decider against Loch Lomond. The 5 at this point though had well and truly shot their bolt, however, and the game was lost by a few scores. With Bell beginning to feel the stress on his knee, Torbett concerned about a return of Black Foot and Kitch, Ross and Paterson just too knackered the Hills at this point retired themselves from the tournament allowing the Islay team to take their place in the shield, which they deservedly won. Elsewhere the main competition was won by Melrose but only after they were taken to sudden-death in the semis by the Hills Old Boys team. The girls also fared well, taking delight in only 3 teams showing up for their event, allowing more time to enjoy the glorious weather, swim in the sea and to ‘perv on the guys’. They won their event comfortably beating Oban and GHA in the round robin and GHA in the final, 8-2. Impressing next years coach-elect of Kitch in the process. They also earned some column inches in the Scotland on Sunday. The Saturday night followed a similar pattern to the Friday. With a marathon booze session at the campsite, where Kitch went through at least 2 pairs of shorts with misdirected toilet attempts. Followed by another disco at the local Hall, where events were again somewhat sketchy, with highlights being the mandatory lineout lifting (with Kitch taking up a particularly unusual technique) and also the mandatory ending-up-on-his-a**e of Paterson. Though he did say the grip on his flip-flops wasn’t the best. Todd again excelled in his team-boy role Sunday morning saw everyone waking up in their allocated tent this time, with self-induced drinking and sun burn injuries and a few aches and pains from the rugby. There were a few sore feet and ankles (or cankles as Torbett called them) from being swollen by sun- burn. Other than this everything was quite low-key with big Grant surviving the ferry back across safely. The obligatory emotional end-of-tour goodbyes were said and we went our separate ways back to Glasgow. Particular thanks must go to Islay for inviting us over and the hospitality shown. The tournament was a fantastic success with the sun-kissed weather being a nice bonus. I think it is safe to say we all look forward to returning next year. |
