Normally these tours are like the blind leading the blind (or, blind drunk). Our first tour to Poland was not like that at all - and was so much the better for it.
Going up in the world and not just because we were celebrating 3 league wins, we dispensed with the traditional 3:30am trip to Gatwick and instead took a nice civilised 9:15am flight from Heathrow. Terminal 5 no less. The airport Wetherpoons full English and pint of Guinness tastes the same at any hour, and then it was a quick hop over to Warsaw.
I honestly didn't know what to expect. What we found exceeded my expectations at any rate. I think there are three distinct parts of Warsaw. Firstly, the new modern steel and glass buildings which populate the city center. They look like they were designed by the same chaps who architected Canary Wharf - and probably were to be honest. Our hotel fell into this category - but no sooner had we arrived at it and wet our whistles in the hotel bar, we were told to move on. The second is decaying communist concrete - and so into this we ventured forth for a spot of axe throwing. This was a lot of fun, and quite tricky. The third architectural style was the incredibly beautiful historic old town.
Now, I know what you're thinking - as soon as we hit the old town we were going to get chucked out of every sophisticated establishment and either end up drinking soplica underneath a bridge, or getting rohypnoled by some scary mobsters. I am thrilled to say that none of this happened - our opposition team for the next day, the Frogs, chaperoned us around the old town and showed us all the best places. The first was the obligatory Irish pub (I've never been, but Ireland must be SHIT - why else would they all be leaving to set up pubs in every country of the world. We could go on tour to Mongolia, and I bet we'd find our way into one to drink badly travelled Guinness - we might just stay at the T5 Wetherspoons).
Now, being fair to our hosts, we were only in the Irish pub for 2 drinks, and then we moved on. The nightlife in Warsaw was a lot of fun, at least now we knew we were going. For once, everyone was well behaved too. Unrelated side note - Matt Ward did not come on this tour.
The next day, we had our game against the Frogs. We got the coach to a very impressive university multi-sports center. It was a beaut; I'm talking proper clay tennis courts, volleyball courts and a family fun day with fairground. And sandwiched between all of that was our ugly mess.
We were the first game of the day. A little worse for wear, we had a poor first half. Liam's restarts took a while to find their mark to say the least. At the half we trailed 35-15, most of that gap was entirely our own fault. We rallied somewhat in the 2nd half, but we weren't able to overcome the deficit, losing narrowly 49-45. Honorable mentions to Mason who tackled and carried like Steve Borthwick was watching from the stands, Chad who was all over the place in the 1st half, but was our best player in the 2nd to almost win it for us in the end, and of course Jimmy James - our resident Tour Judge and Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London who at last played his first game for Wanstead RFC coming on as a substitute in the 2nd half.
The 2nd game of the day was a vets match between the Frogs and Cissou Old Boys. We got chatting to a few of them after, and it was honestly the most French thing ever. After just helping themselves to our beer, they explained that when they train every week, one player instead prepares a three course meal for the rest. I imagine if we tried this with the Wanstead vets team, most of the time we'd all end up with just three separate courses of Whiskey and no food. A few of the Cissou old boys used to play for Jacou - which as most of you will know, is where Wanstead youth teams toured for many years. Hopefully one day soon we can link up again (and they can do the cooking). After a spot of karaoke we went out with the Frogs boys again.
This tour felt over as soon as it had begun. A massive thanks to our hosts, the Frogs who provided comfortably the best hospitality and social of any side we've visited on these tours. Thanks as well to Jason for organising another great tour.
