Tigers Tour to the World Cup – Part 2

By tjs10
December 29 2003

Surfers Paradise: While half of the tour flew north to experience the Barrier Reef, Tigers 1 took a short coach ride to Surfers for a 4-night stay on the Gold Coast.

Our hotel was located about 80 mins walk from the beach though luckily for us the hotel provided a regular shuttle bus from the resort to the coast.

A couple of us did decide to walk it once but we wisely opted against the walk back! Day 1 got off to a fast start when we came across a ride called the SlingShot. Basically, you are strapped into a seat and catapulted up into the air at 100mph.

The journey up is fast, but the worst bit is when the acceleration stops & gravity encourages you to fall back to earth! Sort of like a rocket ride up & a controlled bungee jump down. For some unexplained reason, we had agreed in advance to do it twice…

Most of the people on our tour decided to spend the daytime by the pool, on the golf courses or shopping in the town, with the evenings spent in the casino, the many bars or the local clubs.

The best place in the world to go Scuba diving is on the Outer Barrier Reef but given we were hundreds of miles away, we had to settle for a dive off one of the islands in the Gold Coast. Despite Jimmy O’s bravado about how much he wanted to go diving, he finally decided to commit only 12 hours before we were due to dive, thus being too late to join in. He of course blamed the late decision on other people but we know the real truth Jim!

He did however redeem himself by organising a day trip to Wet ‘n’ Wild on our final day. I’m sure you all remember the photos in the papers of Josh Lewsey & Jason Leonard sharing a rubber ring. If not you will be forever scarred by the one of Johnno & Nobby following suit. Lets just say that us racing down the water slides was a sight to be seen & luckily few photos of the day exist. (I later heard that Greenpeace called after someone thought they saw beached whales near the wave pool but then we moved on & a different ride & the emergency was called off.)


Both Tigers tours met up again in Sydney & the England team were no doubt relieved to hear that not only were we not in their hotel, we were also on the other side of the harbour this time! It was at this point that we were joined by Peter Wheeler & the short tour. Our hotel was just on the North side of the harbour bridge, which meant that every morning involved a walk (or train journey) over the Bridge and past the Opera House to get into the city centre. Not a bad view to wake you up each day!

Semi Final 1 – New Zealand vs Australia. Most of us had also opted for this match as an optional extra as it gave us chance to see two of the best sides in the world playing against each other. It also gave us chance to practice our singing of Swing Low Sweet Chariot. There were so many English fans in the stadium that you could actually hear it being sung on the ITV coverage! Lets just say that the Aussie fans were less than amused at us drowning out Waltzing Matilda but they would have to get used to that as the tournament went on.

The match was one of the best of the tournament & possibly the first time that the Wallabies had really shown what they had to offer. It was however overshadowed by the injury to Ben Darwin & for a few minutes the stadium was worried that we were about to witness a repeat of the Max Brito incident. Luckily Darwin’s paralysis was not permanent & here’s hoping he makes a full recovery.

The coach back from the game was just a precursor of what was to come after the final but Jimmy was in full swing with his renditions of Minnie the Moocher & The Musicman. Robbo’s medley of showtunes was at the more “family” end of the musical spectrum, while the HatPack provided us with songs from the opposite end of the songbook…

The day of the England Semi was spent doing a tour of the Sydney Opera House. Not for us the chance to see sneak previews of famous Operas being performed. No, we got the Australian version of Pop Idol (incidentally, the winner of which has a hairstyle to rival Don King as you may see on Boxing Day) and some modern interpretive dance!

One of the Tigers 2 tourists, Fiona & myself were later asked to re-perform the modern interpretive dance routine for those fortunate to have missed it. A few beers later we obliged to the accompaniment of much laughter. We still hold out faint hopes of being the next Torvil and Dean but the next Pearl & Dean is possibly more likely.

The weather at the Semi final was appalling. With all the rain & wind it was just like a November evening in the UK in fact. Despite what the Aussie press said afterwards, England played to the conditions on the day & kicked our way into the final in the most emphatic way possible with a 24-7 victory over our European neighbours.

Arriving back at the hotel after another “Jimmy & the Hatpack”-lead musical journey home, we were met in the bar by a solitary Frenchman by the name of Olivier who had the misfortune of having booked into our hotel on business! Fair play to him, as he stayed up drinking with us all night & even congratulated us on our team’s victory and wished us good luck for the final.

The following week in Sydney was spent with us each doing our own thing. For me, this included a boat tour of the inner & middle harbour and a day trip out to the Blue Mountains. Tigers had however organised a few extras for us over this period, including an evening with the Tigers players in the England squad and beach rugby at Randwick rugby club.

The evening with the players was, for many, one of the highlights of the tour and, though everyone was asking them the same standard questions about preparation, the Semi & the Final etc, the guys were always willing to answer, to sign shirts and (especially in Dorian West’s case) to tuck into the finger buffet on offer!

The beach touch-rugby Sevens could be summed up in one word: Tiring! Now those of you who have met me can attest to the fact that I am not quite at the peak of physical fitness so the thought of spending 10 minutes, constantly running around on sand chasing a rugby ball in the Australian heat was not my idea of fun but two games later it was over and we all retired to the bar for a few swift schooners of cool, refreshing lager. We did however manage to draw a significant crowd to watch the event (roughly equal to a Rotherham home match?) though we think they came to chuckle rather than to watch in awe of our obvious talent.

Thanks to Jimmy & Matt’s “neutral” refereeing, one of the Tigers teams managed to defeat a side from JP Morgan who ignored the concept of touch rugby and decided that full on tackling was a preferable option…

The day before the final, 9 of our Tour, including myself, opted to climb the Harbour Bridge. We were met at the top by “Spiderman”, the mad Frenchman who climbs buildings without ropes or equipment. So we slog up to the summit, wearing special suits, harnessed to the rails and he just climbs up unaided. Bloody French! Just because we bet them in the Semi Final!

Saturday 22nd November 2003, 8pm, Telstra Stadium Sydney. You know what happens next: The closing ceremony consists of a Kat Slater lookalike belting out True Colours, a cute little boy with a gap in his teeth singing World in Union accompanied by people in suits that even Jonathan Ross wouldn’t wear & the pitch surrounded by 20 multi-coloured giant novelty condoms.

If you remember how nail-biting the match looked on TV, imagine watching it surrounded 40,000 other English fans & 40,000 Australians, all decked out in yellow (it’s not gold) or white, trying to out-sing each other. As Peter Wheeler implied in his programme notes at the Bath game, the English fans had alternate words for Waltzing Matilda, revolving around us, and our mates “enjoying Matilda’s hospitality.”
Jonny’s mother may have been in Tesco & his Dad watching outside the stands, but I can assure you that those of us that saw that drop goal will never forget the celebrations afterwards. As well as Swing Low & We are the Champions, they must have played the entire Beatles back catalogue before we wanted to leave the stadium!

The atmosphere in and around the stadium, not to mention the atmosphere in Darling Harbour was second to none. Almost without exception, the Australians we met all praised England’s performance, admitting they were beaten by the better side and that the Orcs in white were not just a one-man kicking team.

With all of the bars in the centre packed to the rafters or charging entry just to get a beer most of us headed back to the hotel for a night of drunken celebration. The hotel staff later said that they had never known anyone get up on the bar and conduct an Orchestra but if anyone was going to be the first, it was going to be Jimmy Overend! All Black legends John Hart & David Kirk had the misfortune to be staying in our hotel for the final and, despite their protests, Jimmy managed to get them to join in with “Musicman” drumming along in the early hours of the morning, while the bar staff were press-ganged into being the (much maligned) triangle section.

Even at 5am, the hotel bar was still alive with the sound of Minnie the Moocher, showtunes from Annie & Oliver and Daisy, Daisy. My liver however, was crying out for a rest and so I headed up to bed, drunk on both Victoria Bitter and on England’s momentous performance.

By the time we arrived back in Heathrow on the 25th, the thousands of fans waiting for us had dispersed, clearly thinking that they had missed our arrival, but at least they were able to console themselves with seeing the England Squad and the Cup before they all left for work…

{IanB – ‘now….. do I edit this last bit out or not???? Nah!!’}

(See Tallbird, I managed to write the whole article without mentioning the fact that you drunkenly fell asleep on the toilet in the hotel bar, only to wake up there the following morning with gingergill wondering where you had got to!)