Demonic Tales
Hey Big Spender! By Greg Thornley
This Tale is of our Prop Gary Wilkinson and the day that made him our man of the Tour 2005.
Me Gary, Bap and Johnny Phillips got up to Aberystwyth at about 12:00 to get in some early drinking and to get the tents set up for the rest of the team.
Gary and I, after getting into the campsite and having a couple of pints with Blanko, Bap and Johnny, decided to go on a pilgrimage around our Old Haunts like PJM Bar, the Glen and Varsity and having a pint or four along the way( Reminising is Thirsty work!)
This Drinking later intensified after the Crippling news that PJM Bar was closed forever and even worse they had taken Gary’s Drinking Plaque down from behind the Bar!
We got back together with the team and continued the drinking spree, having scrums with other teams in the middle of the road along the way, finishing up in Yoko’s which was a Club then ( Not a wannabe Stringfellows)
Gary had been drinking at a silly rate and while I slowed down during the day he sped up and was feeling a bit Flush so he Gary decided to buy us Champagne….THE WHOLE CLUB!!!!
The next day awakening from his cold wet slumber due to sharing with Bap, who’s tent had broke in the night( Just imagine two front rowers in the womb and you’ll get the picture) Gary checked his bank balance and to his amazement was missing £300! He searched his pockets and finally found the receipt…..BUGGER.
Demons can win Prizes! By Greg Thornley
Well this is my own story about the cracking weekend I had playing for the HMRC rugby sevens team and the CSSC Barbarians side at the CSSC Games 2007 that was held over the 19th and 20th of April.
As Im sure many demons are aware I have always wanted to score a try or five for our fine establishment and every year I have been disappointed, but this April I thought that my demons streak of bad luck my follow my HMRC team. This is where my change in fortunes began.
I went up to Loughborough with my mate Phil (standing in the middle of the photo) looking forward to this torunament as we always go up as favourites to win the cup( which is a rarity for a Shiny Demon...).
We got up to Loughborough and got straight down to drinking which left me in perfect condition to play sevens the next day.... Like shite it did.
Crawling out of my bed I though yes its 9 o'clock and can have breakfast and then head down to a great day of rugby, but when phoning my mate in the morning I found out that the games start at 9 and we are due to play at 9:15.....so I skipped breakfast which I was gutted about because Loughborough canteen does stunning food and I grabbed a lift down to the pitches.
The games started and I played for the HMRC 2 team which started with a 22 - 7 win against HASSRA Fylde, the HMRC 1 team also won their first game 26 - 0 against a pretty good Land Registry team.
Our second game was against the CSSC Barbarians London team and this was when my duck was broke we won 39 - 0 and I scored under the posts and set up a cracking try for my Paul(bottom right) with a lovely looping mispass just before I was tackled....You just can teach that ;)
Having secured our place in the plate we decided to go easy the next two games and lost against GCHQ 33-7 and HASSRA Leeds 22-0 a little disappointing but we didnt want to beat our first team in the cup its just not nice!
Unfortunately the Demons luck came to hunt me in our Semi Final and we lost to a disallowed try right at the end of our plate Semi Final to lose 14 - 12 Gutting!
But as fate would have it I had one more game to play, the CSSC Barbarians were short on players due to injury and so I played in the Vase Final against the NESLC and scored one of our three tries to win the game 17 -14. They palyed a demon type of rugby but strangely they didnt have a person who could drop kick between them?
The HMRC 1 team got to the cup final beating NESLC and HASRA Wales and losing to DSRA. They then beat GCHQ and HASSRA Leeds in the final
Not a bad trophy total in all! 1 trophy for our department. 2 tries for me and a winners medal for the Vase, not bad for a Shiny demon ;)
Is this the way from Aberystwyth? By John Blankson
This is a Demons tale of 2005 and is a lesson to us all as to why you should never allow Greg to drive anywhere.
Our part in the tournament was over, having been successfully beaten in the Quarter Finals (we had qualified all by ourselves you know!) and it was time to make the long journey back to Cardiff. Only having two cars, we had decided to split into groups and make the journey back. In one car Eds was riding with the bitches (Lucky mofo!) leaving Johnny Phillips, Gary, Bap and myself to ride in the blue arrow with Mr. Thornley.
Except there was a problem, Greg had no idea of how to get home. That was OK though, Gary did (We used to come by here with the Army!). So off we went happily, on our way back to Cardiff with Gary giving Greg directions.
After a while on the road, we began to see places we recognised until eventually a sign for Merthyr came up. Not just a small one, but a huge one with large lettering “Merthyr Tydfil, turn left”. You couldn’t miss it, especially as we were on a mountain top at the time with not much to obscure the view. Gary (and the rest of us) began to relax a bit and assuming Greg had seen what the rest of us did, we didn’t bother telling Greg about the turning.
And there was our mistake. I don’t know about the rest of the boys, but I started worrying when he showed no signs of slowing down for the left turn. But I thought, Greg will probably slow down late, He’d done it just before. But he didn’t he just went straight past!
His excuse? Gary hadn’t told him to turn there! To which we politely reminded him that “There was a big f-off sign saying Merthyr turn left!” So instead of turning around we decided to carry on. We’d eventually come out somewhere.
This was another mistake. Greg decided to put his tape on “Made especially”. What he hadn’t told us is that it was Jive talking by the Bee Gees on a loop! We eventually came out in Swansea and made our way home…Three hours of Bee Gees later and my ears were ringing! For the next two days everyone in that car was singing Jive talking! We have immortalised Greg’s immaculate navigation skills in a song:
