Dover Under 14s Tour to Southwold, Suffolk
Dover RFC Under 14s spent the May Bank Holiday on an action packed
weekend at St Felix Independent School in Suffolk for their tour this
year.
The tour was completely looked after by Klub Tours who did a fantastic job of keeping the boys entertained and out of mischief.
On arrival after finding their rooms, the boys were straight into training gear and up to the pitch for a session with a rugby academy coach from Northampton Saints. It was a great start to the weekend, especially for Felix King who has been invited to join the trials for Saints Academy in the summer. Well done Felix (and he is actually an under 13!!).
That afternoon following school dinner lunch (Jamie Oliver style – very nice) all were engaged in problem solving and various activities which expended more energy until tea time. Camp fire followed with Aki 123 to round up the outside events – bed time? Not yet, 9 – 10.15pm – swimming – at least they went to bed clean.
During the afternoon the coaching team spent 2 hours mulling over
the team for the next day. We decided to put strongest forward pack
out in the first half and our strongest backs in the second. It was
great to have so much time to discuss team selection – 2 hours
as opposed to 30 seconds in the changing room before the match depending
on who has turned up! Lessons learned perhaps.
The next day we travelled to Diss to play our one match of the weekend.
One match turned out to be enough as our boys went down 39 – 0.
We then found out that this particular club had 5 county players and
they all seemed 5” taller so we didn’t feel bad at all.
Our boys lost brilliantly and defended like demons. Us parents were
extremely proud and we realised just how far we have come over the
past year.
That afternoon, following a coach journey with only two vomiting boys
on the way back, more activities were laid on – the climbing
wall 
and quad biking 
lead up to tea time before a trip to bowling to
finish the day off. Just before tea we held our end of season awards
which went as follows:-
Players Player – a tie between George Moore and Sam Webb
Coaches most improved player – Sean Piddelsden
Man of the Match for the game against Diss – Jem Payne (magnificent
take of the ball)
Team Managers Award (Jill’s) for points throughout season – Sam
Webb and Dylan Woods
Wally of the Year – Sam Stevens – for an event he would
like to forget!
All in all we cannot praise the organisers highly enough for a great weekend. Klub Tours were brilliant, the venue was great (even though the beds were a bit small) and we all (20 boys 8 adults) had a fun packed few days. We would recommend this type of tour for all boys up to under 15 as it is extremely controlled and everything is laid on, including the food. This means that the adults can have a great time as well.
Website www.klubtours.co.uk
Cost Ideas - £110 per head for Tour, £800 coach and driver,
approx £400 spending money. The boys paid £110 each and
the rest was raised through a raffle, quiz night and from club funds.
AEM Plumbing sponsored the Tour Shirts – thanks go to Julie and
Tim Moore for arranging this.
Reported By Jill Tipping
