Authored By Max
One of the best weekends of all time. Weve had some good weekends away with Barnet and Im sure there are plenty more to come, but I think this one will be right up there with the best of them for a long time to come.
For me, this was my first proper weekender. A month before I had (finally) turned 18, something that had seemed to take far too long to happen. So in the past, where Id had to miss out on such trips due to worries about not having any ID and so on, this time I could get right involved. Making it a proper weekend away, we left early on the Friday, all having to take days off from our usual Monday-Friday activities. For me, at the time, I was doing my A Levels in Sixth Form. I knew my Dad wouldnt let me have the day off, so a few white lies about why I had to leave a bit earlier than usual that morning, due to dropping my bag at a mates house for later, or some crap and I was off. I bet he knew what I was really up to.
We all met on the tube on the Northern Line. I got on at East Finchley, a ridiculous sprint down the High Road to make the train wed said wed meet on, diving in just as the doors were shutting. By the time we arrived at Paddington, there was quite a group of us. It was either 14 or 16, but I forget now. Our train left just before 10am and the beers were promptly cracked open, amidst about a million shouts of TORQUAY MAN! from a few of our group.
A fairly standard, but largely amusing train journey down. It didnt seem to take very long, before we were pulling into Exeter St Davids. From here wed arranged to get a minibus to Torquay. While waiting, one member of our party who was well and truly battered on some cider that was more resembling to petrol than an alcoholic beverage made the very amusing musical quip dont call me David! to Madison Avenues one hit wonder, dont call me baby (2000) in reference to the station we were at. I guess youd have to know the individual and have been there, but for the rest of us at the time, it was highly amusing. Although Im well aware it doesnt sound so in writing.
Anyway, off we set for Torquay. The minibus was fine, a good laugh if anything. For about ten minutes. Before it became apparent to both myself and my mate I was sat with that the beer wed consumed on the train now wanted to make its release. Cue the most uncomfortable journey ever, for the remaining twenty minutes or so, before arriving at the hotel and making a mad dash to the toilet for a piss. One of the best ever, what a bloody relief. We checked in, put our stuff in our rooms and had a very swift drink in the hotel bar, before venturing into Torquay. Im not sure whose plan it was, but we headed for a bowling alley, just down the road from the hotel. We had wanted to do a Quasar style laser shooting thingy, but they didnt have any space if you hadnt pre-booked, or something like that.
It didnt matter in the end, bowling turned out to be quite a lot of fun. Some got quite competitive, others just messed about, which was all pretty funny to watch and be involved in. Of course wed carried on drinking whilst doing this, so no doubt this helped matters. After about an hour or so of bowling, everyone headed off to do their own thing for a bit, in various groups and numbers. So I guess everyones stories would differ at this point. Me and one of the others headed down to the harbour and just generally chilled out a bit. Despite it being the first few days of February, the sun was out and it was surprisingly warm. We may have had a few more cans down the front actually, I honestly dont recall. I do remember pissing off the end of the harbour into the sea, at about 4pm in the afternoon, not really a high point. Oh and my nameless friend wanted to go and chat up the bird selling ice creams on the front, but in the end didnt go through with this and we just bought a 99 each instead, before venturing back up to the hotel.
At the hotel we were greeted with quite a scene, which sadly I cant really write too clearly about for public consumption. We knocked on the door of the room of two of the others, where there were 4 or 5 others in. The person who answered the door wasnt one of this rooms residents, but the reasons why neither of the other two could answer the door were quite brilliant. One was sitting in the en-suite, having a poo, singing really loudly, while the other was doing something on the floor. Haha. Anyway, we all plonked ourselves around the room and carried on drinking whilst watching Hollyoaks, with various things going on around us. Funny. Once the brilliant programme that is Hollyoaks had come to a conclusion, we all went off to get ready for the evening ahead. I cant remember why, but I ended up heading out a little after the others. On the walk down, I walked past the individual who I earlier mentioned was battered before wed even reached Torquay. I said hello, but he didnt even look in my direction. I didnt take it personally, he didnt look like he knew who or where he was. I later found out he definitely was in no fit state. He was walking back to the hotel at this point, having been out for a meal, bit one of the other lads on the shoulder, then gone and got a Chinese, which he took back to the hotel and passed out, with it on the floor, while he lay across the bed in just his pants. This was at half seven. No one saw him again until the next day.
Anyway, I met up with a few of the others in the Lloyds by the front and got straight on the double vodka red bulls. Only going to go one way from there, isnt it? After all being split up, the whole group of us re-assembled in a pub called the Clock Tower at about 9pm. From there onwards, I couldnt really list every place we went. Yatess definitely, we had a good picture of about 25 Barnet in there, but I dont remember a lot else. It was either in there or somewhere else where one of the boys got on the table and began dancing, prompting one of the more sensible amongst us to go right off on one GET DOWN!, which was hilarious for the rest of us, at the time anyway. We probably went to about four or five different places, before ending up in this bar, with a dance floor and stuff back near the harbour. It was quite good in there actually. We left about half one or something. One or two of the boys were in an absolutely disgraceful state by now. However, two of them had managed to pull. Sort of. Theyd got talking to these two birds and told them that we had a house, just up the hill that we were visiting for the weekend. For some reason, they agreed to come back with us. There was about 4 of us and 2 of them. They werent even attractive or anything. But no, its not really going down that route, dont worry. Their faces when we stopped outside the hotel all laughed and said this is where were staying were funny. Its a hotel!! well, yeah. But amazingly, they came in all the same. Thinking about it now, it was all a bit disgraceful, but at the time, so funny. We all sat in two of the other lads room, cracking back on with cans. The girls were not impressed, one saying I thought this was meant to be a party. This prompted one of the best pissed reactions Ive ever seen. My mate who had passed out across one of the beds, sat up, without opening his eyes and said This is the worst fucking party Ive ever been to before slumping back down and almost immediately starting to snore. Amazingly funny at the time. Anyway, these girls lost their patience, especially when one of my mates basically gave one an ultimatum about whether they were sticking about or not. NO was the answer, lets just say and that was them gone. Like I said, they werent even pretty. It was amusing, though. Everyone else went off to bed, but about four of us stayed up in this room until gone 4am, for no real reason, just talking about stupid things and stuff. Fun, though.
Despite going to sleep at bastard oclock, I was up bright and early, by about half 8. Everyone was up quite early, one of the others gave us a rather amusing knock about the door about 9am and by half past we were all downstairs for the breakfast. Fair to say that was a pretty dubious affair, Ive certainly had better fry ups. Anyway, none of us were feeling quite 100% after the previous nights mayhem, so we decided a little walk down the front, sea air and all that, might sort us out. Six of us went down and for better or worse, stumbled upon a joke shop by the harbour, run by some Geordie bloke. The fun we had in there. We must have been in that place for a good half hour and between us spent an absolute fortune on a variety of crap. I got a giant inflatable banana for the game, while the rest bought a number of things, such as cock noses, literal dick heads, funny glasses, plastic boobs and various inflatables. Most amusing. The bloke in that shop loved us. We walked back up to the hotel, it was now about 11am, all dressed in our new purchases. Cocks and tits everywhere. Cars were all beeping us as we walked up and everything, we were all finding it pretty funny, though, it was to be fair. We walked back in the hotel and one of us, definitely not me, had put one of these plastic cocks sticking out of their flies. Prompting some woman with a strong Devon accent to scream Hes got his willy out! before realising what it actually was. They then saw the funny side and started asking us if we knew if they had anymore they could go and buy! A piss funny start to Saturdays proceedings.
The hotel we were in was pretty nice and it had a swimming pool. So we managed a little go in there. Admittedly, we got a bit silly with this. Four of us actually went swimming, while one other watched. Weirdo. We were like little kids, jumping and splashing about. Then one of the hotel staff came down and said have any of you been splashing? when the room was soaked wall to wall dripping everywhere. Er...no. Haha. It was February, so hardly like we could make the most of Torquay being a seaside town, but our little morning swim was a nice change to the norm. We decided wed had enough and walked back up to our rooms soaking wet, before getting ready to head into town for the lunchtime game. Liverpool against someone. I didnt really feel like drinking again, just yet anyway, so was quite glad when we made our way to Plainmoor in a few cabs. When we got there I decided one pint would be alright, so we all had a quick beer in the bar adjacent to the ground, before getting in quite early, at something silly like half two. It was ok though, Simon King gave us a ball to have a kick about with on the terrace and anyway, we had our array of inflatable things to keep us entertained. This was more fun than the game, when it started. It was shocking. We were mid-table, they were bottom. It was so uninspiring to watch. Torquay were 1-0 up for ages. We didnt look like, or really deserve to, score. But, with a minute left, we did. Sadly, it was down the other end though, so the pitch wasnt littered with inflatables and plastic tits. Nicolau, his first goal for Barnet, I think. We celebrated it a bit, but it had been such a dull, pretty meaningless game, it was hard to get terribly excited about it, this was a 1-1 draw with the worst team in the league.
After the game, we had another beer in their social club, before getting taxis back to the hotel. For the first time all weekend now I was feeling pretty shattered and it seemed I wasnt the only one. We all piled into the lads room wed spent the most time in so far and settled down for half hour of quality TV, Meerkat Manor. What a show. During this most of us had a can on the go, but it was quite half hearted drinking, yesterday was really beginning to takes its toll. Still, we werent to be stopped from having it a bit more yet. We got ready and headed back into town, probably about 8. We went to a few different places to the night before. Then about 10-11, people wanted to go to a club. Slight potential problems here with ID, not me for once, but two of the lads aged about 21 and 23 hadnt brought theres with them. Whilst old enough, it was still likely theyd get checked. Sadly, this night began to fall apart a little before people had even gone to the club. About four or five people decided they were too tired and went back to the hotel. For some reason, a few of us walked back with them, got another can or two, then headed back to go to this club. Everyone got in...bar one of the lads without ID. I was the last one to go in, after him. I couldnt be out of order and leave him on his own, despite this meaning I was going to miss out on finally legally clubbing. Still, in the end, we made the best of a bad situation, the two of us. We re-visited a few of the bars wed been to on the Friday night, namely that one with the dance floor down by the harbour. We got fairly drunk in the process too and ended up trying desperately to get more birds back to our hotel. No success whatsoever though and by about 1am, most of these bars were shutting and any other places had stopped letting in, so we decided it was probably time to call it a night. A few of those whod ended up staying in were still up when we got back, so we did a little tour of the rooms, having a little read of the bible in one of them. It wasnt too long though before a few of those whod been out made their way back. One of the lads in particular was hammered, proper hammered. He gave us some superb naked entertainment, nothing homo-erotic, just very, very funny, Singing, dancing, lots of tucking in of things. Im sure you can imagine. Or perhaps youd rather not. Pretty awful really, but there was plenty of laughs at the time. Like the night before, about 4am marked full time for the night, with everyone now pretty smashed and definitely tired.
The Sunday morning didnt feel great. We opted to go into town and have a fry up in a cafe by the seafront, rather than having the dodgy hotel breakfast again. We had another little walk down by the harbour, before heading back to the hotel, packing up and setting off back to Exeter in the minibus. We had to wait a bit for our train from St. Davids and then when it came, off we went back to London Paddington. Not the most eventful journey, we were back in London for about 4pm, I think. I got home, feeling a bit gutted it was over and I was back in the real world now, but mostly reflecting on a superb weekend. I write this just a few weeks shy of our next trip to Torquay, whove got promoted back in the league, following relegation in 2007. Lets hope it matches or even betters this superb weekend...
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