Picture the scene: Lanseria Airport – Wednesday Evening, 17h30 PM.
A lone figure enters the Wiesenhof coffee shop, clutching a Hansa Lager branded bag and a slightly nervous expression.
He takes a seat at a table and orders a draught beer, for the nerves.
One beer leads to another. He seems to be waiting for something besides a plane- but what?
Suddenly a few hulking figures emerge blinking into the light, the waiter stand up and shouts: “Boys! You made it! Let the Masters Waterpolo Tour begin!”
Needless to say, when you get drunk before you get on the plane, things can only go one way
I ended up losing my original boarding pass and five minutes before we were due to start boarding I made a rushed and somewhat stumbling jog (I don’t run) down the stairs to the check-in. The kindly gentleman there said “Lucky I remembered you from joking about having drugs in your bag”
Little did he know I wasn’t joking.
The flight itself was uneventful, apart from the whirring and clicking in my brain about how I was going to convince my team to abandon them for a romantic tete a tete once we landed. I realised that no amount of convincing in the world would sway them from taking me drinking so I came up with a cunning plan.
When we landed, I ran.
Without so much as a goodbye, I bundled into the car of my lover and we sped off into the night… romance and beer ensued.
The next morning, after a stolen breakfast and much skulking in corridors so as not to be seen, I was driven across the peninsula to Table View, and then even further to Durbanville, and a disused quarry that was to be our playing filed for the next three days.
As I was being dropped off, my lady remarked that this was the equivalent of being dropped off by your mom for the matric dance, and could result in any even heavier fine than the one already promised to me due to my ninja-bomb disappearing act the night before.
Luckily as you can see – I was literally the first person to arrive:
Eventually, after watching a bunch of really old men do a couple of warm-up laps of the quarry, my team arrived – ordered me into leopard-print boxers and proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the morning.
Our first game was against Clifton – a team in which there were 3 current Springbok players and the rest of the team were all ex-Springboks.
In comparison my team had 2 Gauteng Schools Provincial players. We lost.
We played another 2 matches and lost those too – at which time we decided to turn this tour into a drinking tour.
In part 2 I’ll try and piece together what actually happened through interviews and photographic evidence. It may take some time.
Please be patient, your views are important to us.
Revolutionary Throwback 