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Newman and Evans really took Milan by storm this year, ably abetted by young guns Fulton and Kuczynski making their tour debuts. Read the day-by-day accounts and the match reports below.
As usual the fun and games began as soon as the boys congregated at Stansted Airport. The Anglo-Italian Cup, won so gloriously last season, was taking centre stage and Simon and Steve (SAS) were warming up with some low-level smut talk.
John, still in rehab after his Creation Records days, was mulling over whether to invest in a CD player, when CPR decided to repay the organizational efforts of their beloved Guv'nor by chipping in and buying him a Panasonic beat box. Shortly afterwards the unmistakable sounds of Andrews' obscure film soundtracks and seventies compilations began to echo around the Norman Foster-designed terminal.
Despite a 30-minute queue for a sorry-looking cheese sandwich at Stansted and the strange chemical cup-a-soup on-board easyJet, the boys arrived at Milan Linate in fine spirits.
They were met by 30-degree heatwave, but were fortunate to be saved by the boat-like Luca-mobile with its air conditioning, champagne fridge and in-car pornography channel. The erudite Bruni happily regaled the newcomers to Milano with an impressive history of his home city.
Shunning the brothel-like Bolzano this year for the sleepy canals of Naviglia, CPR breezed into their new-found base, only to be stunned by the matchbox-sized rooms they had been allocated.
Jon Murray, designated a small fold-down bed in the OAP wing (along with Budgie and Oak), sneezed and wasn't seen for several hours.
Meanwhile SAS escorted a by now pale-looking Amir (Axis of Evil) off to the Smutrider suite. Fulton and Kuczynski cracked open the first bottle of Scotch of the trip and set off for Hard Drinking Jocks floor with, er, Jason.
One small raid on a pizza parlour, a canal-side sandwich, strange Italian-Chinese meal and afternoon in a pool den later, the lads were well set up for the big evening tie against IFC Gibson.As ever the Negrelli was pumped full of atmosphere, accentuated this year by the oppressive heat and sock-penetrating mosquitoes.
While the Italians buggered around with Champions League soundtracks, pranced on and off the pitch, and sniggered as we messed up our national anthem once again, big Steve Newrorn was winding up the team American Football-style. Hence when the whistle blew CPR tore like a whirlwind into their opponents, who didn't really know what had hit them.
The defence had a solid look about it with John, Alex and Dan patrolling the box and Simon and Daws playing absolute blinders in their wing-back roles.
Steve and Jase were putting it about in the middle with Jon M and Amir adeptly covering the wings. Stu and Andi looked lively up front, giving CPR a number of early chances.
As during much of the preceding season, CPR lacked ruthlessness in front of goal, but the breakthrough came from Simon. The British team's man of the match, smacked it in from a corner.
The second half followed much of the same pattern. Chris Davis came on for Andi Fulton, Luca replaced Simon on the right, Andy Danieli took over from Jon Murray on the left and Samy Djavidnia took on Jason's play-maker role.
The pressure had to reap another goal and it came from one of Steve's long throws. As the ball sailed into the box The Saint went up for the header but was sent crashing down to the ground by the Gibson centre-back. As Davis appealed for a penalty, the ball fell to Stuart on the far edge of the box, who dispatched it into the top of the net. The goal stood.
CPR now looked firmly in control and even enjoyed a moment of supreme entertainment as Alex swiveled to boot out a dangerous forward punt. The big centre-back misjudged the ball, which instead struck the top of his head and flew into John's hands. As Al looked confused the rest of the defence were doubled up with laughter.
There was a moment of concern as a Gibson striker got in between Al and Dan and finished clinically into the far bottom corner (1-2). But CPR held on comfortably for a deserved victory and Dan had the honour once again to lift the famous trophy.
The traditional barbeque and Lambrusco tasted sweet and John handed out CPR anniversary tour T-shirts to our ever-generous guests.
The lads then headed into the centre of Milan for some serious drinking with the rorn specialists hitting form at last. After tucking into some evil-looking Long Island cocktails Simon, Steve and Axis arrived back at the hotel at around 5 in the morning with the cries of 'smut rides' and 'group!' ringing out majestically across the ancient waterways.
Andi and Stu arrived back in their room just a Jason was coming back from his 20-mile early morning run and high-powered breakfast meeting with the glamorous global magnates behind PoundStretcher…
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