Sunday 22 February 2009

Tours are like buses..wait for ages then two come along at once!

Our eighth annual summer tour is confirmed. Which will be our twelfth foreign tour in all. On the last weekend of July we return to Helsinki to again play our new friends from the HJK club, who made us so welcome last year. As well as a full eleven a side supporters' match we will be cheering them on in their 'big boys' First Team top flight Veikkausliiga match versus FC Haka, it promises to be a great weekend, albeit an extremely expensive one, in a pricy town, even before the pound crashed!

Tour eleven is only a few weeks before Helsinki, and will be our fourth trip over to Belgium. The big day for this is Saturday 20th June, when we have been invited into the Cyril Mangin Tournament, which is an international seven-a-side competition, which is being organised by the fans of Union Saint Gilloise, who we first met at the RFC Liege fans' Johan Felix Tournament, which we were invited to in May 2005. It was also at this tournament where we first met our good Hamlet friend Nicolas Lucas, since then brought his Belgian Paris Saint Germain supporters' team over to England twice; invited us to their tournament in Belgium in 2006; and in 2007 played host to us in Paris itself! Nicolas was also instrumental in establishing links between "The Rabblers" & the supporters of Union Royale Namur, who we visited warly last year!

These promise to be two great trips, though perhaps a bit too close together for some, especially as the mid-season one early this year wasn't arranged, as the management expressed concern that two tours would prove a bit costly for some...

Everyone is welcome on these tours, you don't have to go on both to be involved, though you're more than welcome to! If you would like to make either trip, as a player, or as a supporter of the supporters, then just drop an email to the gaffer Mick O'Shaughnessy at: mospurley@hotmail.com

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