It started with an email; ‘Furness Netball haven’t been on tour before, could you be the first to take them?’ My immediate thought, how hard could it be? How wrong!
During the holidays I had the pleasure of taking 12 netballers to Lloret de Mar, north Spain. Months of preparation, cakes sales and organised fundraisers paid off with a pre-tour weekend. Bags packed with fancy dress attire and ‘Lady’ (the team beer funnel) we headed off on our 30-hour bus journey.
The hotel was as expected; two beds, two sofas. No problems there. The pool? Cold. The night life? Amazing. We made it out for a whole hour the first night. Unbeknown to us, we had a fellow teammate mixing gin into our drinks, which apparently made half the team cry.
How was the Netball? Good. The sports hall was great, the other teams were lovely and up for a laugh apart from UWE who were taking everything far too seriously. They were on the receiving end of chants throughout their matches, not too dissimilar to, ‘Where’s your BANTER gone?!’
We learned that day to have a laugh with it. You may be glad to know the second night out was much more successful and we were out en masse as ‘Birds on Tour’ in line with the Animal theme.
We spent much of the next day chilling around the pool mainly recovering from the previous night and getting ready for the next night – Cheerleaders. The pre-drinking was great, other teams in the hotel would frequently come in the room to play a few games which inevitably saw themselves go through Lady first. As she stated on arrival, she was not to drink alone, and she definitely did not drink alone, or wash, for the entire week.
On the penultimate day I went to Barcelona with a few of the other girls. The rest stayed locally and visited the beach and shops. It was incredible to include such a city into the trip and I had a great day looking at the culture and learning about ‘some bloke’ – Guadi, trying to feel human again.
The final night was incredible – we went as Hula girls but had a few costume disasters before we had even reached the hotel lobby. It was a brilliant night to finish our tour.
I had such an amazing week and I know the girls did too. I was lucky to go with such lovely friends who were such a laugh. If anyone is thinking of taking their teams away – DO IT! It is a lot of hard work but is more than worth it when you get out there. It doesn’t really matter where you go just make sure you are with a good company and a great team. I think it is safe to say we toured hard and I wish whoever organises it next year all the luck and an amazing tour.
