Our postponed “Ash Cloud” tour took place over the weekend of 15-18 September 2011 and saw some 50 plus Perennials gather at our tour base, the Holiday Inn Brentford Lock near Heathrow.
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The advance party of golfers enjoyed two superb days of sunshine hitting their little white balls. With a 21 shot handicap, Emlyn Williamson took first prize on the Thursday session. As shouts of bandit rang out from the golfing party, an emergency meeting of the sore losers decided to cut his handicap to 17 shots for the Friday session. The committee were proved right as Emlyn proceeded to win this session also.
Saturday morning saw 50 Irish supporters and 2 Australians take over the hotel bar to watch the Ireland v Australia game. An unbelievable game with the drink flowing and the hearts pounding. It motivated us for the main match of the day later that afternoon – the Perennials v London Irish at Sunbury.
Unfortunately one of the young Australian supporters in the bar Nathan Reidy, struggled to accept the defeat and as tears flowed into his pint of Guinness, he was observed walking slowly to the edge of the bridge outside the hotel with his national flag draped around his shoulders. Fearing he was about to jump we sent in the rescue team of Michael O’Reilly and Geoff Pitt. With Geoff challenging him to jump to see if he could swim, Club Captain Michael O’Reilly took a different approach and talked and talked and talked and talked him down. The deal breaker was that Michael was prepared to sacrifice his place in the team to give the young man the opportunity of a lifetime, to borrow the skipper’s kit and turn out as a guest for the Perennials against London Irish.
Willie Oakes also put a personal ad in the local free paper looking for a scrum half, because he had heard rumours he would have to do an 80 minute spell on the pitch. His free ad brought Bangor man Harry Miller to the rescue and he also joined us on the bus to Sunbury.
Both our guests looked slightly younger than their years, but what they lacked in the ways of the world they made up for in pace on the pitch.
A motivational team talk by our non-playing skipper saw us take to the pitch determined to follow in the foot steps of the early morning win by the Irish team.
London Irish scored the opening try but as the drink wore off the Perennials confidence grew. However the Perennials could never get their nose in front and despite tries from new boy Michael McAllister and our guest scrum half Harry Miller they were trailing by 4 tries to 2 going into the final quarter.
The key feature of the game was the competitiveness in the Perennials midfield were Peter Sanford, Ricky McIlmoyle and Stuart Porter were vying for the title of “Intercept Passer of the Year”. With 7 intercepts during the game, 3 of which resulted in tries, Ricky McIlmoyle won the race by a country mile.
As the heavens opened the rain woke up the tourists even more and tries in the final quarter from Emlyn Williamson and another superb solo run from Harry Miller, saw the game finish at 4 tries a piece.
Denis Fusco was declared man of the match after lifting his opposition prop up in the air at one momentous scrum, Club President Philip Parker and Club Captain Michael O’Reilly thanked our hosts and we all then departed back to base for tea and an early evening.
Thanks to our two guests for turning out, to Tim Lowry for refereeing, to Geoff and his helpers for all the organising and to London Irish for their hospitality.
