The Greys tour can raise a lot of differing emotions, from joyous anticipation to the utter dread of the 6-9 months of badgering by the older cohort who regard tour as a prerequisite of true Greysmanship. Some crumble under the pressure, some resort to downright lies just to get the swiveled eye loons off their back and some simple say, “No, I’m not coming on fucking tour, fucking leave me alone.”  

Only one person truly regards it as an opportunity to dither, equivocate, dissemble, tease and generally draw attention to himself by pretending he isn’t going to tour while all the while knowing perfectly well that he will, in the hope that his desperate teammates will end up begging him to come, just to save the tour. Not only that, but he will also take the piss out of those of us who give impassioned pleas to fellow Greysmen to keep the tour alive or at least make the last tour one to remember. Anyway, despite his outer cunt being so hard to penetrate, we know there’s a sweet man trapped inside, a bit like Luca Modric being a small boy trapped in a witch’s body and it was lovely to share the journey down to Devon with Ian.  

Dave’s car said it was overheating but seemed to lying, or I inadvertently fixed the problem by unscrewing the radiator expansion vessel cap to let some tepid water spray out. “You don’t know what you’re fucking doing!” said Ian, which was certainly true.  

We took a break at some pub or other and managed to push the last mouthful of lunch into our gaping maws only just in time before Chiefy’s car pulled into the car park.  

We have never arrived so early and en masse as we did for this edition of 11 Go Large in Devon, which seemed to make no difference to a couple of Greysmen who took absolutely no notice of this by getting stuck into the polypins almost immediately and then being somewhat surprised that they were completely bladdered by about 10pm.  

Had this report been written soon after the event, it would contain some more detail, but edited highlights include Biff instantly losing track of his tape identified beer glass and making a new one, only to find the original one right next to the barrel and also getting up at about 4am to wander around the bedroom cleaning his teeth and grinning like a madman as well as one can with an electric toothbush in one’s mouth. Dave made a vast chilli which we were still eating 5 days later and the night was spent dancing, gurning and wondering why it wasn’t 3am yet. 

The true tour saviours the two Dunkerley brothers arrived in time for breakfast, somehow served despite Ian making a drama out of the fried potatoes and smashing the bowl of sausages on the kitchen floor, and off we set to the village of Chittlehampton. If you were in a meeting trying to think of a name for the venue of a Miss Marple episode, you would surely reject Chittlehampton as unrealistically twee.  

This game had been a godsend in the harsh reality of trying to get a Saturday tour game and had come with some conditions. We were supposed to get an assessment of the quality of the opposition during the week, as their fixture secretary was concerned that a young and inexperienced team might be traumatized by our bowling attack and wanted to be assured we would try to make the game as even a contest as possible. No such communication was forthcoming, however, and as the captain on the day suggested a form of village rules, we assumed the Chittlehampton team was not so weak after all. This impression was reinforced by their decision to bat first on winning the toss and we took to the field of play, known locally as the Pringle due to its unusual contours, with bellies full of beer from the local pub and heads full of hangovers from the previous night’s endeavours. 

Everything started quite normally, with Ziggy Foullerton and Tom Dunkers opening the bowling in a very untraumatising way apart from Del’s lightening wicketkeeping testing the square leg umpire’s judgement. As it turned out it was a good job he got that decision wrong and the batsman stayed at the crease.  

However, Tom bowled well and took three wickets, aided and abetted by our wonderfully overzealous Aussie. Some of the younger Chittlers didn’t fully appreciate the importance of staying in their ground and like a crocodile lurking just beneath the water’s surface to ensnare an unsuspecting wildebeest, Delbert ruthlessly stumped four of them, his eager appetite undiminished, although he did look a bit guilty with the last one, realizing a bit too late that the sides were a little mismatched after all. 

Comic interlude was provided by gluten free Chiefy, who in trying to stop a ball with both his feet at the same time and in the same place, could not quite maintain his equilibrium, and toppled over like a felled tree for a well-deserved PSM.  

For any other cricketing details, you’ll have to refer to the scorebook I’m afraid, because I can’t remember or be bothered to look myself. Suffice to say Barnstaple and Pilton (to give them their proper name) were all out for 64 or something, despite Ben’s best efforts to help them to a more challenging total with some of our less challenging bowling. 

During the changeover we took advantage of the cans of beer on offer and got chatting to a former MCC player who was responsible for the existence of the pitch and who had been banned from the local pub for his opposition to a planning application by the landlord on the field. He also explained why the village church was so large and ornate as local legend had it that a young woman from another village had accidentally had her legs scythed off (or her head in some versions of the story) before managing to drag herself in to the village before dying. When she died, a spring appeared on that very spot. This of course was a miracle by anyone’s reckoning and she was beautified as St Heiritha and a rather magnificent church was built in her honour. Think he said it was the tallest church tower in Devon. 

This was all far more interesting than the cricket as far as I was concerned and we lost 4 wickets getting to the insufficient total, with Del injuring one of the kids who tried to stop one of his drives. We then ungraciously refused to play a beer match, inspired by the heat and the need to get some more gin on the way home to go with all the tonic we had left over because Biff hadn’t really been putting any into his absurdly strong G and Ts.  

Back at the house it turned out to be new game night. Chris almost exploded with excitement on finding he was involved in a game of darts and table tennis at the same time, Tom and Jim realized the Greys were the missing ingredient in their social lives, Johnny began to remember why he’d stopped coming on tour and then forgot again. We played Camp Wiff Waff, a game where we all pranced around the table tennis table like uncoordinated Morris Men, taking one shot each, sacrificing the first player to miss his shot each round. This game can’t be played with two, and we did try, so there was no winner. Somehow DD didn’t win the darts, which went to Jim Dunkerley, who also won the event of the evening, Hang Tough. This involved the medieval style chandelier and who could hang from it the longest. Johnny set the mark at 1 min 9 secs, equally by me, but smashed by Jim who finally dropped on 1 min 49.  

I made a note of the fact that Duncan got a fly trapped in his ear at some point in the weekend’s proceedings, but I can’t remember when it was. I know Dunc and I made an unformidable wiff waff team, but I can’t remember who won that, maybe Biff and Johnny. It was another fun evening and the extra attendees of Chris Dunc, Del, Tom and Jim made all the difference to the overall atmosphere. 

We smashed a record number of glasses and other things and some did a crash course in dishwasher maintenance but we eventually disappeared into our respective bedrooms to find out who really snores the worst and dreams of dangling Greysmen. 

And so to Sidbury, where Bish had made the journey back from his adopted home of Switzerland just for us (not really, but certainly a happy coincidence) and where we knew we would be facing a sterner test than the previous day. Johnny and I took turns to drop out of one half of the test match format game, and he made his mark in his part by winning PSM for a classic Woodford sweep, a sight for sore eyes and too long since it was last seen. It would be nice to claim the weekend had taken its toll and explained why we lost so meekly, but it wouldn’t be true. 

Chiefy took a good catch above his head at a sort of slip, Del was immaculate with bat and gloves, but we never really recovered from a terrible start to our first innings, losing a load of wickets for bugger all in about 8 overs, leaving too much to do in too little time for the real batsmen coming in in the lower order. Sidbury had some good bowling and some good strikers of the ball, including Bish, who had confessed before the game that Del had been living rent free in his head for about the last 15 years or so.  

All was well of course, as even the most competitive Greysmen will have forgotten the pain of defeat shortly after the game. So, with BBQ burgers and more cans consumed, and a bit of sitting around in the sun and then trying find all the bits of one’s widely distributed kit, it was time for goodbyes to Biff “Sunday is the best night” Line, Dunc “Piano Toes” Edwards, Chiefy, Johnny, Jim and Tom.  

So the tour lives to fight another day and if the Dunkerly’s are to be believed we might not be in such a crisis again next year and beyond. Who knows, maybe some of the other nearly men will crumble under the pressure and there will be more new blood to drive to near insanity with endless boring anecdotes.