To begin with it was to be the Norfolk tour 2007, but when we realized the tour wasn’t confined to the Norfolk county boundary, it became the Norfolk and Suffolk tour, and eventually becoming the East Anglia tour. So here it is, the (unedited) highlights:

Chapter 1 (Prince of Wales Road):

Written by Lindsay Ritchie

As everybody arrived in dribs and drabs it’s hard to know where to start reporting. Down the Prince of Wales Road in Norwich me thinks. Don’t get me wrong, Norwich is a lovely city. But for some unknown reason the Oslo Aliens were drawn towards this most delightful part of town. The police were out in full force, white scantily clad bodies laid strewn on the streets. The wiff of rotten meat (kebabs) was pungent in the air and sound of smashing beer-bottles and four-letter expletives frequently heard. One tour member said, ‘f**k’, it’s like Sarajevo down here. He wasn’t far wrong.

Further down the Prince of Wales Road, away from the war-zone, the Oslo Aliens found an inviting nightclub, named The Loft. We’re not going back up there, let’s go in here. So it was to be. The place was dimly lit and the décor shabby. Poppers were on sale at £6.95 a shot. Trancy/funky sort of music was thumping away in the background. Women were dancing with women and men were dancing with, well men. The Oslo Aliens found themselves inside a gay club.

The homophobes skedaddled, but the more liberal Oslo Aliens decided to give the place a chance. A round of some particularly nasty tasting Sambuca served in plastic shot-glasses was ordered and consumed in no time. Then another and another and another.

After a skinful the Prince of Wales youngest son would be proud of, the tour members decided to crawl back to camp, stopping briefly to investigate the Secret Garden. It was pitch black, but the Oslo Aliens could sense they were not alone. The Secret Garden is something of a local attraction and at 3am is inhabited by Norwich’s under-age drinkers. The vapours from Chris Millers hipflask soon had them swarming around us like flies around sh**e.

A hipflask of 18-year McCallan and a geography lesson later it was time to depart. Full Englishs awaited the survivors of this eventful night.

Chapter 2 (Pub ahoy!)

Our more than capable tour organizer, Paul had a boat tripped planned for us on Day 2 of the tour. The initial departure time of 12pm was delayed by about 2 hours due to some particularly bad bouts of Sambuca poisoning. Those that escaped the previous nights shenanigans with nothing more than a sore head went off in a search of an ATM (Norwich must have the least number of ATMs per sq. mile. of any city on the UK mainland).

So to the boat trip.

Racer Boy Cabs (Norwich) Ltd. ensured our safe passage to the boat yard where we were welcomed by Captain Birdseye himself. After a quick run through of the rules and regulations governing river transport (most of which fell on deaf ears) the team set off. Destination: The pub!

Mooring at the first pub en route proved too great a challenge for our team of novice boatmen and it was decided to proceed to the next.

The beer garden of the next pub was awash with Norwich totty and as our boat approached the crew felt like the Argonauts being drawn towards the Sirens. Albeit their destiny was rather more unpleasant than ours. Alcoholic refreshments of various types were enjoyed over several hours before setting course for the boat yard, with a quick stop for a cheeky pint at pub no.1. (The previously failed attempt at mooring was a piece of p**s with a few beverages inside).

Back at the boat yard Captain Birdseye was in a good mood. We were back early and he could toddle off to do whatever he did on an evening.

Racer Boy Cabs (Norwich) Ltd. were again on-hand to shuttle us back to base-camp at warp-speed. A quick freshen-up at the hotel, another ATM hunt and another cheeky pint and we were ready for the CWC 2007 final.

The controversial end to the end of CWC 2007 had us all cursing and swearing (and apparently Jonathan Agnew as well) but that didn’t dampen our spirits, although the grumpy git of a proprietor at the Beeches Hotel did his upmost best. After an intense amount of heckling from the Likely Lads, Jeremy and Damon, he saw sense and served us some bedtime brews.

Another eventful day, and some excellent preparation for the following days game.

Match Report - Stradbro(o)ke vs Oslo Aliens

Written by William Dennett

Aliens on tour

The Oslo Aliens played their 2nd match of the 2007 tour against Stradbro(o)ke on Monday 30th April and pretty much enjoyed themselves. Because Norwich has licensing laws devised by the anti-fun lobby, hangovers were smaller and less numerous than for the previous game and a couple of the Aliens were looking almost fresh.

Captain Supremo produced another negotiated toss victory, this time to field and, as stand-in wicket keeper, was immediately subjected to some of the most terrible dross-masquerading-as-bowling ever seen in the part of England the game was played in. Only extreme athleticism prevented every ball bobbling down to long-stop for 4 wides.

That said the Aliens managed to take wickets frequently with Abid again proving very tricky on the grass. The Stradbroke captain, opening bat, press secretary, grounds-man, wicket-keeper and (probably) ventriloquist, Richard - - Pierce - - Saunderson, a former Alien, played a few attractive shots before falling to Lindsay and a dangerous looking youngster with ginger hair was snapped up in the slips by Dennett Junior. Aliens slow bowlers were slogged about a bit in the middle of the innings and a difficult outfield and unpredictable bounce meant that Stradbroke always kept the scoreboard ticking over; except when Abid was bowling his impressive way to another 5 wicket haul.

By the time Dennett Senior took his second catch behind the stumps - off Lindsay’s bowling to add to the caught Dennett bowled Dennett a little earlier the jammy Stradbroke outfit had inside-edged themselves to a daunting 191. That was a score that was always going to be hard to chase on a misbehaving wicket. The Aliens did their best to make it even harder to chase by losing quick wickets at the top of the order (again, although Ali got a nasty rising ball and Ryan a not very nice yorker) and it was not until Damon and James were together that real progress was made; assisted by a change of bowling to right-arm-slow-and-hittable. Abid played himself in for an impressive 2 balls before trying to hit a six over the boundary of the ground we had played on the previous day (about 70 miles away), missing it and getting bowled Captain Dennett Senior looked sublime for his 16 before being caught by the umpire at square leg, Paul biffed a four and Chris didn’t biff anything to leave the Aliens looking like they might lose their first ever tour match.

At 132/7 only James had scored more than 20 when he was joined by Dennett Junior who was expected to be as rubbish as he had been playing for the opposition the day before. Instead he stayed there to the end to hit the winning runs and finish the job started by James who finished with 69 he was dropped twice by Pierce-Saunderson who had obviously forgotten that he no longer played for the Aliens.

Naveed did nothing but sprang to life in the pub.

The Aliens won by a wicket to protect an unbeaten record on tour. Bring on the domestic season and another 2 victories from 18 games.