Roller Rabauken (Ants in your Pants) 10-12 Sept 2004

By Ian Botham

 This being the last rally of the season all the Northern crew of the AFSC were keen to attend.  Myself, Lisa John Wymark, Jimmy Foalle, Craig & Kath Ballantyne, Steve Evans, Gaz Powell, Kev & Ellen Greenwood all met at McDonalds in Soltau for a diet burger before the long distance which was ahead of us. The journey up was eventful with Jimmy breaking down and pathfinder Wymark getting us lost.  On arrival at the site after 4 hours on the road we established camp and comms and cracked open a few bottles. The venue itself was very good with excellent camp facilities and a decent building for the ‘Nighter’. Craig soon warmed up the dance floor with his Adidas fireproof Samba’s knocking out a few Northern moves that Mick Fullbrook would have been proud of. Jimmy set to work on demolishing the best part of 2 liters of Vodka and Coke and then lost his memory for the next 12 hours. The tunes on Friday were not too bad with some decent Northern and a bit of the old classic Weller discs, the AFSC filled the floor and would have been clear favorites in a dance off!!  By 0300 most of the club were pretty well oiled and retired for some well earned kip, however I must point out that John Wymark stayed up and wanted everyone to know that he was the last to bed.

Saturday morning came along with a cracking hangover, Lisa pulled the stops out and knocked out some bacon butties on the love bus that I borrowed from a kind gent from work. The day was well organised with plenty going on, we were approached by Cooper asking if we would be interested in taking on ze Germans in a 1966 repeat of that classic football match and yes it was over the line, we gladly accepted the challenge and set a 4 o’clock kick off giving us plenty of time to limber up with a few cans of Stella and 20 Lambert and Butler’s.  The team consisted of Ellen ‘The Cat’ Greenwood, Gaz’Take no Prisoners’ Powell, Kev ‘Don’t kick that ball so hard at my wife’ Greenwood, Ian ‘lets do the Bastards’ Botham and Steve ‘Take them at waist height’ Evans. The Germans were well up for this game and came at us from the start, but with the safe hands of Ellen in nets the score was kept at 0-0, that is until I cracked a 30yarder into the top corner only for the Germans to pull 1 back 2 mins later.  There was an obvious difference in the fitness levels which began to show early in the second half when I banged another 2 goals in to put the score to 3-1. What followed can only be described as sloppy defending allowing the Germans to pull the score back to 3-3.  The referee was your typical European and seemed to be holding out on the whistle for a German goal, with seconds remaining I picked the ball up and made a Beckham style run at the German defense finishing it off with a well placed shot into the goal bringing the score 4-3 to the mighty English (it would have been a UK side but Craig wouldn’t play).  The final whistle was blown and handshakes were made and pride restored! The rest of the day was pretty quiet, we had a short rainfall which seems to happen at every rally this year, but it didn’t dampen the spirits everyone just cracked on with the cans of Stella. Saturday evening came and we headed over to the Nighter to brush up on our dancing skills as Mick Fullbrook thinks we’re all crap.  The sounds were good and the presentation was made for the winning Football team in the shape of a small trophy which was lofted high by the team captain Ellen, it was then filled with the finest German lager and passed around the proud team in a victorious celebration.  We were joined later by Borgo, Marion and Bricky who I must mention came by car (come on Borgo you know the score). The usual banter was flying around and a good night was had by all, yet again John was the last man standing.

Sunday arrived and the post rally blues started to set in, knowing that this was the last rally of the year and having to ride home. Everyone said their goodbyes and we all started to filter home. I’d like to thank all those who came along this weekend for making it another AFSC classic time, it was good to meet Gaz for the first time even though he rides an LML. I’m now looking forward to the first rally of the next season which seems like 5 years away but we can squeeze in some Nighters over the winter break. Once again thanks for a cracking weekend.

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