FRIDAY:

The action packed four-day tour to Holland began at an unearthly hour of 4am when the coach left with 26 players and their managers (Mr Celani, Mr Byrne and Mrs Daw).

The coach journey was smooth but the ferry journey not so smooth – ask Mrs Daw! We arrived at out Hostel mid afternoon and stretched our legs with a kick around after organising our rooms and making our beds.

The first injury of the tour came during this friendly kick around on the hostel football pitch. R. Fenton added a broken thumb to his recently healed broken finger, caused by A. Evans mighty left boot.

The first match of the tour resulted in the girls playing vv Nieuw Woensel and drawing one all with R. Bellesio scoring from a free kick after both teams played some good football and had shots saved.

The boys match was a little more high scoring with the wrong aged team turning up to play us (vv. Woenselse Boys), so after a few goals were scored, the teams were mixed up and played a good hearted training match, finishing off with a penalty shoot out which surprisingly we won! (continued below)

SATURDAY:

With R. Fenton's hand in plaster and M. Burrough’s foot in a bandage, we set off to Eindhoven – home to PSV football club, the current champions of the Dutch league, having won a three horse race on the last game of the season last year.

We took a tour of the stadium and got to see all the private areas of the stadium that most fans don’t get to see day to day. This included the players' dressing rooms, players' bar, press conference room, referees' room, trophy room, business seats, restaurant and bar, and the pitch via the players tunnel.

The afternoon provided us with the opportunity to watch the PSV players train at their sports complex before heading off to the tropical swimming centre with wave machine, three flumes, rapids and Jacuzzis.

After our evening meal we headed off for a few frames of bowling before returning home for a well deserved rest.

SUNDAY:

The second set of fixtures lead both teams to play against W. de Valk. The girls played a good side and came out winners (1-0) with M. Cliffe scoring the only goal of the game.

The boys ended up winning 7-1 against a physically smaller side than us but this doesn’t take away some excellent plays during the game and fine individual performances.

After a quick social chat and a drink with the host team in their club house we departed for the match between NAC Breda and NEC Nijmagin who were third and ninth place in the Ere division respectively. Free yellow flags were handed out to every home fan to celebrate the teams colours for reaching a place in the league, which means European football for the club next season. The match was an entertaining one resulting in a 3-1 win to the away side – NEC.

Our return to the youth hostel signalled the start of our ‘Combat Laser Quest’. This is a mixture of paintball in the woods using laser quest style guns and sensors. Miniature Rambo’s were created and the player of the tournament went to R. Goodall.

The evening was spent packing up and generally cleaning our rooms prior to the awards ceremony. Up for grabs were three trophies per team: Best Player, Best Goal and Best Surprise.

The players from each team cast a vote for each award and after all the votes had been counted the final results were:

Award
Best Player: M. Gardner (Boys); S. Killick-Bird (Girls)
Best Goal: M. Gates (Boys); M. Cliffe (Girls)
Best Surprise: R. Goodall (Boys); T. Searles (Girls)

Monday:

After a lazy breakfast and thorough room inspection were departed with our coach for the UK once again having had an action packed long weekend in Holland.

The staff would like to thank all pupils who made the trip so memorable and behaved impeccably throughout to make the trip such a success.

Mr Celani