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A (relatively) low-key Friday night meant that CPR was in pretty good shape for the Dagnante tournament. After four years of going out to the bars of Milan CPR finally proved that they could drink like the Italians: ie in a restrained, sensible manner.
Everything was very civilised and Samy and Erica even took us to see some Roman architecture in San Lorenzo Square at the end of the evening. We must have been knackered after the epic 2-2 with Rino's Boys because Simon and Steve weren't even that bothered about the rorn.
Villa Zuccoli in Dagnente looked better than ever this year. The rain had greened the pitch nicely and Mikki had painted on some crisp white lines to give the six-a-side tournament a professional air. The sun even came out to acknowledge our arrival and despite a couple of tough games in the previous two days we were up for it and determined to win the tournament for the first time.
Needless to say we bombed - we probably couldn't have managed to get two oversized pieces of European silver through the airport anyway. I think we scored three goals in three games and conceded around 23. Not sure what went wrong really but we were in beautiful Dagnente so we didn't really care. The views were gorgeous, the crowd glamorous and we had our summer short-sleeved shirts on.
Special mention to Evans for stepping in to ref the first game, who did a great job when he was watching it. And despite the Italians speaking really good English, they barely understood a thing Simon said. Calling them lads instead of fellas would have helped, Si.
The evening meal/CPR presentation was again the highlight of the tour. The singing was more raucous than ever, mostly because Pietro's brother was in the room. "We love you Johnny, because you've got no hair/long hair" was probably our tour song, while the Italians returned our taunts with a few rounds of "You only sing when your losing" which hurt.
Brilliantly hosted by our very own Saint and Greavsie - John and Samy - the evening climaxed with the awards ceremony. Rino's Boys were rewarded with Philosopher Football T-shirts, which were all apparently spot and went down very well with our hosts.
Jason received our goal of the year trophy and was asked by John to describe the goal. To a hushed crowd Jason described the build up to his goal (which involved him dribbling round their defence, with no help from any of his team-mates). After he had described how the ball had arced into the top left corner of the net there was a pause as everybody took in the brilliance of his achievement... and then the restaurant went mental as everyone cheered and clapped as though Inter had just beaten Juve in the last minute of the European cup final.
CPR's player of the year was Jon Murray, who gave a moving speech about how his love for the lads at CPR. The vote for Jon was unanimous and his award fully deserved. It also brought a warm glow to all the 30-somethings in the squad. At 40-something John proves that fitness is much about the mind as the body.
Mr Evans finally bought proceedings to a juddering standstill by standing up in front of room and asking if there were any single girls in the room who were up for it. And, then, when nobody had uttered a word added. "Because Alex would like to meet you." Cheers mate (I still think a few hands went up).
After the meal everything got a bit mad as CPR and the hosts cruised the length of Lake Maggiore looking for niteclubs that would accept 35 pissed-up, dressed-down footballers. We did have a couple of girls with us - Lornza and Marta - who almost swung it at a couple of venues, but sadly we were thwarted by our lack of collars and tassled shoes. "This eeez for elegant people - sorry," was a typical response from the bouncers.
We satisfied ourselves with a few rounds of the "shit ground no fans" chant and jumped in the cars to the next venue. Special mention to Jon Murry for falling into a deep ditch outside a club somewhere near the Italian/Swiss border. One minute there was Jon proudly getting out of a car, the next, there was no sign of Jon, just a hand holding his trophy aloft above a very deep hole.
The next part of the evening was a bit of a blur: in no particular order it invovled: dogs in cars/singing/ Simon touching up somebody's wife/cars travelling at speed on wrong side of the road towards nervous CPR players/Pietro's brother stopped by police and not being breathalised/Simon trying it on with a 17-year old and getting threatened by squeeky 19 year old boyfriend/Steve Newman telling squeeky boyfriend that if he was going to have a go at Simon he would have to have a go at him too/Simon grinding into another girl while singing a Curtis Mayfield melody that wasn't played in the disco etc etc.
The last venue was Bar Roque, "the chicest nightclub in Maggiore" so something of a surprise that most of us got in (mostly thanks to Lornza and Marta). Rino and a few of his friends were turned away for not having sufficient stiffness of collar. They tried again, this time wearing their dirty Rino's Boys football shirts under their sweatshirts but alas the bouncers were having none of it and poor Rino spent the next couple of hours in the car park waiting for us to come out so he could take us home. A big thank you for Rino and the others for sticking around - they must have wished we'd just gone back to the hotel after the meal and had a quiet nightcap.
After the club a few of us went up to the villa to have a snoop round the beautiful house and watch the sun come up over Lake Maggiore. Simon thought it might be a good time to introduce us to elements of the national curriculum. He started performing a play in the ampitheatre which he called Sunrise. This was about man waking up to dawn for the first time. Halfway through the performance Simon somehow persuaded Marta and Lornza to join him on stage during the "awakening" scene. This was too much for Steve. With the three of them writhing around on the wet grass Steve called out, "this isn't the sun rise Evans, this is a smut ride. Hurry up and get to the lesbo action", which pretty much put an end to the play.
Other entertainment in the Dagnente coliseum included Alex's coin trick and Rino put flowers in his hair. There was also a game of leapfrog and some handsprings from Marta and big Steve (!?). It was that kind of night.
Nobody strayed down the wooded path. Alex and Simon headed in that direction briefly, but that was only to hide from Steve Newman during a game of hide and seek. (I doubt we would have been playing this if John Andrews had still been around to organise things). The game was notable for the positioning of the home base. "To get back to base you have to touch the beard of this fella here," said Simon pointing to the face of a hapless Italian theatre director, who hadn't said anything for a couple of hours and who looked must have wished he'd gone home roughly seven hours earlier. It was all a little bit surreal. Ken said later that he had to pinch himself when he found himself playing hide and seek with big Steve Newman.
Finally the night's entertainment drew to a close, but not before Simon and Steve had introduced themselves at 7am in the morning to everyone in an OAP tour party who was just leaving their hotel to go on a coach tour. It was handshakes all round as they introduced Ken and Alex to the proceedings before wishing them bon voyage.
Oh, and Steve and Simon managed to fit in a couple of Grappas at a local breakfast cafe before going back to the hotel for a brief snooze. This came back to haunt Evans a few hours later on the plane. "You've got to be careful that the hair of the dog doesn't turn into a dog," said John who was pouring himself a midday beer. "Yeah, a fucking great big Alsation", groaned Evans from the seat in front, who had been sick shortly after take off. Despite this Simon still had the energy to grind his fat arse in front of some poor Italian girl as she got off the plane a couple of hours later. And that, I think, was my abiding memory of the 2002 tour to Milan. Thank you Steve and Simon for keeping us entertained for four days.
Italian-English Dictionary, Evans and Newman 4th edition
BGA: Big Gay Al
Harris: arse
Harold Lloyd: answers on a postcard
MADAM: general exclamation to herald the sight of any attractive or large breasted woman.
Mrs Evans: any unattractive or elderly woman.
Rattle: bone-shaking sex. "She's in need of a good rattle".
Rorn: attractive likely looking females.
Smut ride: Experienced by women who remain in the orbit of Simon Evans for more than 10 minutes.
Spitroast: Act of affection shown by two men towards one woman in either Arona or Milan.
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