Hembrough opens the account, but everyone else is out of it

I was utterly convinced that out of the thousands of flights from Newcastle to all over, ours would be the only one that’d get cancelled. This would mean the dipstick, Ant Hill mob, driving down in the car (with Dave Smith being the only sensible one) would have to play 6-a-side against their Maltese opponents. In the event, everything was truly perfect. No delays and we were all in Gatwick with plenty of time to wait for the Malta flight.

Everyone driving down was well sloshed. Cressy was boozed up and Macca, Greenwell and Muers (who was catching up) had their fair share in Gatwick. So the flight itself had it’s usual ups and downs. I managed to get us all in together in the same seats. Greenwell fell asleep and had his face painted, while Emu sleeping had his watched stolen. He woke up, slavered all over his shirt and then looked at his wrist to see what time it was. Greenwell also puked up in the toilets before take off. It didn’t help that he admitted he was scared of flying, so it was the usual, “that wing looks a bit loose”, “is that smoke coming out there?”, “have you seen Airport 77, when they crash into the sea?” Gourlay and Cressy also got bollocked by the Air Hostess.

“What are the rules?” asked someone. “No rules,” was my reply. Once we took off from Gatwick, everyone was on their own. We landed and then it was a perfect transport to the hotel. Everything was running like clock work. Everyone was sharing rooms, but to my utter luck, Macca / Cressy were roomed next door to Greenwell / Muers. To top it off, instead of single beds, Macca and Cressy had one double bed. Cressy being the bitch of the relationship was in for a sore time (and a sore arse). He also discovered that an ex of his was spreading rumours that he was fiddling with boys in the Town End Farm Club toilets.

We met in the lobby and were soon transported to the Victor Tedesco Stadium for our first game, an evening game. Everyone was well out of it by now. In the changing rooms, Scotty revealed his thong. As I said, there were no rules in this tour and it also included relaxing my ban on long hair and homosexuals, which is the reason why Scotty Hembrough, turning increasingly camp throughout the tour, was available to play. The opponents, KirKop FC looked well and truly useful. All doing the usual warm up stuff while we could barely keep our eyes open.

Game kicked off and I announced there was no way I was going to play. Cressy, apparently “sober as a judge” was forced to play the full ninety. Marky Mark was our Man-of-the-match and rapidly realised that Sassco have been standing still for six years. He’s probably shocked thinking about how he spent a year travelling up and down from Northumberland playing with a bunch of retards. We actually did okay in the first half. Eventually they wore us down and went 4-0 up. Scott Hembrough scored a late consolation, but it was all that we deserved.

The standard of the Maltese sides was spectacular. We look at amateur football in a different way. The top level sides in Malta are pro, but not well paid, so the attitude in all the other sides is exactly the same. The same level of fitness and dedication. These are all teams run along the lines of the likes of Shildon AFC. In Malta there are no teams put together by one person such as the retards playing for us and not training, etc. These are all well organised community units.

Back to the hotel, shave, shower, clean up and we spent the evening in a local restaurant, drinking heavily and stuffing our jaws in preparation for an early morning kick off against Mdina Knights.