'Twas a fine summer's day on the first morning of tour. Most people were going about their daily business; dropping children at school, jumping on trains and heading off to work.
Peter Ruffell also thought he was going to work.

When his flat mate/colleague/work-lift announced he was 'going to get something from the car' and then sped off up the road, Ruffs smelt trouble. Minutes later, Swiss, Mustang Gallie and Elvis burst in on him; it was a kidnapping!

Ruffs was hurriedly bundled into the back of the Swiss-mobile amongst reassurances of 'you won't need a change of clothes Pete, look at these lovely cut-off shorts we've got for you'.

For the first 24-hours of tour, Ruffs was heard to utter little else than 'you b*stards!'.

The meeting at Waterloo was the usual disarray of getting the first rounds of the day in, the handing out of tour shirts and the odd virgin punishments in the Firestation. To his credit, Jamie Perry arrived dressed as a Virgin, having travelled from Surbiton, as penance for his continual gobbiness and efforts to be taken seriously. The train was caught, remarkably with no tourists left behind, and the games commenced. Ben & Dan kindly looked after the Tour Virgins, simply but effectively….. pouring vast amounts of anything alcoholic they could lay their hands on into them through a funnel.

Gareth and Balders having arrived well equipped with bottles of gin were lucky enough to have purchased Dowdy who had also arrived well equipped, with bags of ice, lemon, tonic and glasses! Settling down for a gentlemans Gin tasting session, unfortunately Dowdy was completely unable to match his masters pace and having run out of Gin (!) by York, he had to settle for bongs of beer which sent him over the edge. The same could be said for Guy, who was reported to be 'more drunk than anyone's ever seen him', 'continuously laughing like a girl' and 'being responsible for a very nasty burn mark on Dowdy's spuds!' Guys apology for this perfectly reasonable act, went unheard by Dowdy who tried to show his injury off, to anyone who would look at it on the Newcastle Metro!

After a little snooze, it was evening time and we all headed into town.
Once the language barrier was crossed and the simple translation rules were applied (toon=town, ay=yes, nah=no, beveee = a pint of lager, eeh yer a cheeky one aren't ya = please get your hand out of my brassiere) the Vandals were able to integrate with the northern softies effectively. True to its reputation, Newcastle is indeed the most hospitable place in the world and they all love being told that they sound like Jimmy Nail. Shots were downed, drinks were drunk, dance floors were cleared and general fun was had by all. Little to report here other than the fact that Pete Ruffell is in fact a trained pole dancer

Day 2. Saturday
Saturday dawned bright and early with Tour Court. Punishment was dished out liberally to deserving miscreants. For those that were there, who would have thought a simple children's party game could provide so much simultaneous horror and amusement?

Being the day of the Guinness Premiership Final, after Court the boys headed into town to secure a seat round a nice big telly to watch Sale and Tigers batter each other. After being reprimanded for virgin sumo wrestling and an 'Is this the way to Weybridge Vandals' conga routine to the tune of Amarillo, the bar manager was less than amused. Needless to say 6'4" of Jessica Simpson'esque beauty in the shape of Matt Dowdy was able to smooth matters over. Job done, he returned with apologies and a bottle of champers! Well done Daisy!

After the game and Leicester's drubbing, it was decided that it was time for the virgins to show off their X-Factor skills.

V - Factor

With a panel of Dan 'Lyrical Gymnast' Chapman, Luke 'You Starting?' Batten and Chef 'People Can't Believe I have a Liver' Owen, the entertainment commenced.

Entry number one was the beautiful Gus Chisholm in his lovely stripy virgin socks and strappy-top singing Britney Spear's 'Hit Me Baby One More Time'. Needless to say, it was very difficult to tell the difference in both looks and tune between Gus and Britney. Job well done!

Entry two was the hairy-kidnap victim himself, Mr. Ruffs. Singing Jack Black's 'F*ck Her Softly' in the voice of Sean Connery. A near perfect performance save for the fact he forgot most of the words and sounded nothing like Sean Connery.

Entry three, was Councillor Gallie performing his interpretation of 'What Vandals Means To Me' in a two-part modern dance extravaganza. This amounted to little more than Mark rolling around on the floor in strange Kama-sutra style positions while everyone hummed 'Ride of the Valkyries'. Minus points for not humming the song himself but bonus points for being more active than seen for years!

Entry four, Mr. Shane 'The Guvnor' Logan'. Entering stage left from the gents toilets, Shane simply wiped the puke of his chin, muttered he couldn't remember what he was supposed to be doing and went back in to the loos. A master of the minimalist. Full points.

Entry five, His lordship, Paul 'PHH' Hollingshead. Pulling off his jacket, PHH revealed a black full-body leotard, a face mask and a large inflatable palm tree. Bouncing into the arena, Paul was met with the rapturous applause of "WINNER, WINNER, WINNER!" Sadly, PHH didn't quit while he was ahead and decided to sing a song. Good taste, decency and national pride prohibit me was revealing any more.

Entry six, Jaimie 'I look quite comfortable dressed as Daisy' Perry. Having maintained his soft Aussie reputation, Jaimie was a little worse for wear for most of the weekend and decided to keep his performance simple. Placing a condom up his nose, Jaimie was sick.

Entry seven, Dowdy McBeal In honour of Joan's birthday, Matt killed 'Flower of Scotland'. Dreadful.

In order to make up for Dowd's shortcomings, the virgins collectively finished up with singing 'Happy Birthday' in the style of Stevie Wonder for our beloved Joan.

The evening progressed into town for the usual light shandy and chance for stuff to be strutted. Whilst the majority of Tourists 'got down', 'strutted their stuff' and generally acted very foolishly, in an act of bravery (some might say insanity), Bedtime tried to help his virgin by providing a collectors edition souvenir. Aiming carefully at a condom, Tony missed completely and laid an egg of giant proportion in the Pope's bathtub! In the spirit of camaraderie that accompanies all Vandals Tours, Tony's closest 'mates' immediately grassed him up!

Swiftly moving to Sunday's court, the session was kept short and sharp and largely sobrietous due to it being match day. Little was dished out in the way of punishments save for Bedtime receiving a pint of nasty muck which was administered though a metre-long funnel. Nice.

Making our way to the club of the Novocastrians (the Novos), we were greeted warmly and in return we decided to put on a show for the wee northern boys.

A sumo circle was soon laid out and from the comfort of the club's balcony, the virgins put on a fantastic performance of ancient sumo wrestling. Notable congrats going to Ruffs and Dowdy for their accurate portrayal of fat Japanese wrestlers and Jaimie for simply lying down. Not remotely held back by sore heads, Dowdy battled his way to victory.

The game.

Considering the amount of alcohol that Mr. Bedtime had put away that morning, it could only have been by a miracle of nature that he was able to put on one of his best performances all season, unequivocally winning man of the match. Big hands also go to Swiss and Darren for having great games, Swiss even got muddy and Darren didn't bang on about his try all night either! Will wonders never cease!?

The game itself was fairly well matched but the three days of drinking definitely took its toll on the Vandals. Lots of great work done on the field but the finishing power and speed was certainly lacking. Novo's won the day by a mere 4 points, but were happy for us to go out into town claiming we had won! How kind.

Post game events involved a swift and fairly nasty court session for a few members. With some having to drink through their stained underpants whilst another had to put up with asemi-digested condom in their drinks wrapped around a gherkin. Mmm, yummy!

The virgins performed admirably in the 'Find the Pope's tour shirt' event culminating in a 5-man tug-of-war for a scrap of material. Guvnor Logan displayed his true animal-like tendencies to push, batter and bite his way to victory. Jaimie watched from a bench half asleep.

Once again, the evening had its usual nocturnal activities. The Vandalised Dukes of Hazzard tour theme tune was successfully played in Moods nightclub and was beautifully choreographed by Ben and Dan on the stage shaking their booty.

Monday, with little sleep and most tourists being about 83%-proof at this stage, the day progressed slowly and quietly.

A smooth journey home hosted the awards for tour with P***k of the tour going to PHH for his Catwoman impressions, weekend long entertainment value and a Tour Trophy snaffle that left everyone around him gasping with admiration at his agility and audacity.

Weybridge Vandals RFC

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The Vandal Magazine - September 2020