sl-netball-issue

TRAVEL
... as is re-fuelling for
upcoming matches.
WHAT GOES ON TOUR...
Re-hydrating after the
match is very important...
Make plenty of time
for team bonding...
Jo Gunston heads to Spain on a netball sports tour but please note, the preparation for
the tournament is possibly not the way the professionals would go about it...
The tournament is important
but preparation is also key...
It all started exactly how you’d
expect a sports tour to start –
oddly. Not usually one to go up to
random men at the airport asking if
they played netball, this seemed as
good a time as any.
I’d arrived at Alicante airport in
Spain with no sign of Ralph, the only
other person I knew on the multiteam
tour. We were supposed to
have been on the same flight but I’d
not seen him on the plane and there
was no sign of him at the luggage
carouseI. A busy time at work meant
I’d literally just hopped on the plane
but with none of the info of where to
go next. Yeah, the Ralph thing. I’d
tried calling him, to no avail, hence
the approach to the random man.
The logic behind this was that he
looked like he was part of a large
group – good, eh After confirming
that yes he played netball, yes he
was there for the Javea netball
tournament and no there wasn’t
anyone on the trip he knew called
Ralph I thanked the man I now knew
as Vin and tried to call Ralph again.
“I’m at the luggage carousel. Where
are you”
“At Gatwick. I thought we were
going to be on the same plane.”
“Me too,” said I, “Me too.”
A few hours later, Ralph and the
rest of my actual team found me in a
restaurant having a raucous old time
with two-dozen similarly inebriated
people. Vin and his group had a
spare seat on their minibus so off I
went on the 50-mile trip to Javea,
hanging out as the squad settled
into their villa and then we headed
out to dinner. And that, my friends, is
the sort of thing that happens on a
sports tour, at least to me.
You’re with like-minded souls who,
on court, are either competitive as
hell or else wear T-shirts announcing
‘competent netballers, champion
drinkers’. Off court, you party hard
and suffer the consequences come
the multitude of games the next day.
And the random guy I bumped
into at the airport We’re still friends
to this day. That’ll be him in the
photo opposite, laughing his head
off. Thanks for the lift Vin.
Jo went with playnetballcom. Look
up their 2015 tour info... if you dare
... get plenty of rest... ... before going again
PHOTOGRAPHY: JO GUNSTON. PLAYNETBALL.COM
38 @sportsliberated www.sportsliberated.com 39