Newcastle -  A Long Day Out!!

 A full account of JonW's experience of the day trip to Newcastle, on a bitterly cold day at Christmas time.

Full Story To Follow - Sorry, at work now so won't get the chance to complete until later today.

So, the journey begins on Boxing Day evening, 23h00 approximately. "Best go to bed", early start tomorrow.

05h30 - Grrrrr!! The alarm's going off already. Time to get up, sort out some food, and most importantly beer!

06h15 - All sorted, shower and shaving off of hair ritual time. (Well, it worked against Sale, so I thought I would try again)

06h40 - Coach is at the end of road, let the journey commence.

So, it's still dark, we are sat on a coach on the way upto Sixways to pick up the remainder of the (half) coachload.

06h55 - Everyone piles on board with coolbags and boxes full of provisions for the day. (Hopefully all beer!) Head count done, all accounted for and everyone gets two seats to themselves, superb!

07h00 - Off we set on the many hundred mile trip to watch our beloved Warriors versus the Falcons of Newcastle. To get us in the mood the DVD of last season's 51-10 victory is blasting through the speakers and on the TV screen, happy days.

07h25 - The first murmurings come from the back of the bus, think they are just waking up now. "I wonder what time would be reasonable to start drinking?" I hear someone ask. Not much of a response, so I think everyone was either still asleep or too hungover from their Christmas festivities.

The two teamsheets are passed around the bus for people to peruse. Plenty of rugby discussions happening now, we are awake. "Did you see the Wasps score?!!", "Wohoo! We're 8th again!", "Are Newcastle actually going to play Hayman?". Many of the usual topics also, "Will we at least get to see the Warriors play good rugby?" - I won't answer that one!!

09h15 - The journey has gone well, we are now deep into Yorkshire terrority, a few boos rung around the bus when passing Rotherham. So, we stop off for breakfast at one of the Service Stations en route. £6.25 for a breakfast bap?!! At least I didn't pay £9 for the full breakfast I suppose. The bap was very nice. We bump into Bradders, Nicola & the H&W crew also. They left approximately one hour after us and have caught us up in decent time.

10h15 - Breakfast over, nicotine replaced for those that required, and back off on the fun bus. It was then agreed that now was a sensible time to start drinking. Time to let the beer flow!

More general rugby discussions follow, along with a reasonable level of drinking.

12h15 - Arrived at the ground. "17h30 pick up time says the man in charge". Right off to find our tickets......oh, ticket collection point isn't open yet, neither is the ground for that matter!! Through the club shop we go to find piles of envelopes awaiting us with our pre-booked tickets. Now, off to find that pub we passed earlier up the hill.

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