Having made the mistake of going abroad - and to miserable Norway of all places - we did the sensible thing this year and stayed in England. What a fine place it is. A green and pleasant land indeed. A land fit for Lords and Ladies, for Oasis and The Beatles, for Gazza and Shearer, for red telephone boxes and policeman with big helmets and, indeed, for the Queen and God himself. And greater perhaps even than Her Majesty and The Almighty are those blessed with the opportunity to play for Exeter City. Many have tried, but only a select few have been deemed bad enough to wear the famous red and white stripes. So, instead of drinking wildly expensive beer in the company of dreary Edvard Munch-like manic depressive Norwegians who smell like an old fisherman's underpants, we decided to hire a compervon and explore the glorious south west of England whilst watching Exeter City prepare for the 1996/97 season. Here is our diary:

FRIDAY:
Roger, Andrew and Alan travel from London to Taunton, here we meet Gary who is driving our hired compervon. The compervon is actually called ‘compervon’ as we are told it is Norwegian for campervan and it reminds us of a previous holiday and it's sounds pretty bloody stupid. After a quick trip to a cider farm (where we buy a barrel of cider for the van), and a supermarket (where, surprise, we buy several crates of beer for the van) we eventually end up in the tiny town of Dunster. A picture postcard town with it's own medieval thatched bus shelter. We parked the van up for the night in some lay-by next to a stream which was to be useful as washing facilities after a hearty bowl of salted Scottish oat porridge in the morning. Later we have a great time visiting every pub in the town, which sadly lacked a similar medieval thatched curry house. Start as you mean to go on, as we always say ... the evening was rounded off back at our mobile hotel wrestling with the TV aerial trying to come to terms with some of the driest Somerset scrumpy ever tasted. Perhaps we should have bought some of the original Devon stuff rather than that foreign copy-cat alcho-pop.

SATURDAY:
Wake up early, not least due to the rain banging on the metal roof of the van, and some rather noisy flatulence. We elect to get back into God's County as soon as possible. So we snake down the A396 towards Exeter. As if by magic as soon as we pass the welcome to Devon sign the sun made a fleeting appearance. The destination in the capital of Devon was St James' Park. Here we park the van next to Exeter City's Centre Spot social club. This is handy as we chose to spend the whole day drinking in the Centre Spot, with the minor distraction of the Supporters Club Annual General Meeting at which we, and the disgruntled membership, pass a vote of no confidence in Exeter City s directors. In the evening we see an Exeter side which included former England star Neil Webb play terribly, although to be fair he was not alone and lose 3-0 in a friendly against Portsmouth. There s more disappointment later as (a) the nightclub we visit turns out to be crap, and (b) Lynford Christie is disqualified in the Olympic final. However this is compensated by an impromptu mobile house party just next door to Ray Marshall's pile of rotting grass cuttings and the Supporter's Club's rubbish in the waste transfer station.

SUNDAY:
The first real hangover of the adventure was compounded by Gary's breakfast purchases from the dodgy "Maggot-in-Nan-Bread-mix" purveyors - whole pickled cloves of garlic not only keep away evil spirits but disguise the now familiar farty smell pervading the van. After breakfast we de-camp from Exeter and head via Dartmoor and Plymouth (uuurgh!) into Cornwall, In an attempt to improve the aroma we elect to visit a very popular tourist spot on Dartmoor, Belliver, where we decided to strip off and wash and shave in some sparkling clear spring. In my opinion it tasted of sheep piss, I am not going to disclose here just how I know what that tastes like, but I am sure many of you have drank Wrexham Lager. The look on those grokel's faces was a picture. Definitely a good case of male bonding. Our appetites suitably sharpened we sit down for our first proper meal as a team. For starters: rough cider, main course: Pot Noodles of the World "Sechwan Chilli flavour" for sweet: Rough Cider. It was collectively agreed that this pot noodle must have been shown a chilli any other connection was purely coincidental. However, the risk of further flatulence was reinforced by the addition of a load of tabasco sauce, this sorts out your pot noodle but it doesn't half make your cider taste funny. Much to the relief of the National Park Officer we soon continue on westward. The trip is made all the more exciting by the obligatory minor collision to make it all the more funny it was with a coach full of Germans. An argument threatens to break out, but thankfully it was all sorted before the need to decide the winner via a penalty shoot-out. We park the compervon for the night in a pay and display car park in the centre of Lostwithial, where once again we complete a circuit of all the town's pubs, earning a bottle of wine by winning the Sunday night quiz competition in one of them. We return knackered to the van via the weirdest chippie in the world, which not only sold chips but doubled up as a pub, laundrette, video shop, and newsagents. Queer folk these Cornish.

MONDAY:
Always one to start the day with a challenge, Gary manages to drive the compervon through narrow roads in the fishing village of Mevagissey (in reverse) which would struggle to accommodate a motor bike let alone seven tons of mobile home. That mission (eventually) accomplished, we settle down to breakfast with the best view Europe. The beauty of this village is that it is deep into darkest Cornwall, where pasties can be found growing on trees. Not the one that Gary bought, it was of cow pie (or more accurately cow pat) proportions. This was a meal for the average Cornish family of fifteen complete with "super dad" for a week at least. It would come in handy for the forthcoming night's revelries. Eventually we reach Porthleven, where Exeter are playing the first friendly of the tour. We elect not to park up behind the goal, which was sorely tempting - the mobile home was like our very own box complete with not so mini bar. Instead we did the sensible thing and park in their car park out of the way so the partying wouldn't disturb anyone. After securing the home for the night we head off for down-town Porthleven where we spend the afternoon drinking in a pub next to the harbour, where by five o clock about twenty City fans are singing (Lager, lager, lager, lager, shout it! and Eat my Goal). An Exeter City flag proudly flew above the harbour. Later our gallant Grecians thrash Porthleven 6-0. Missed by many who struggle to escape the clutches of their Club house. To give Porthleven FC credit they looked after us and fed us well. PFC went further up in our estimation by joining us in a good old fashioned sing-song and better still donating some PAFC memorabilia. It was no surprise when some one set a precedent and also set fire to the same Argyle scarf and pennant in celebration. Even later still, a very drunk Steve Darke (ECFC Supporters Club secretary) claims that he’s going to win gold for Britain before running off into the distance and darkness. He fails to return for some time, and a search party is sent to collect him. Eventually he is found and led back to the pub, where he admits that he only got bronze. Still better than Lynford, though. Back at Compervon HQ the party goes into overtime where a serious dent is made to the cider stocks, not to mention the bottled lager (lager, lager, lager). We finish the evening at 4 am by sitting down and eating Cornwall's most famous export after Tony Kellow. (although to be fair he did taste a little pickled).

TUESDAY:
A much needed quiet day, it took sometime to get over the horrible sensation of cold swede, turnip, and potato sqidging between your bare toes, although having said that the pasty did leave an interesting pattern on the carpet. We spend the morning relaxing on the beach, enjoying our second wash of the week in a fresh water lake called Loe Bar conveniently positioned on the beach (how thoughtful) fortunately there were less emmets (Cornish for grokel) to offend with our naked and smelly bodies. Lunchtime was spent in Helston and the Blue Anchor that brews it's own beer, definitely an acquired taste (nothing like lager, lager, lager, lager or cider). Later we find a cybercafe and scan the Norwegian Exeter City Internet pages along with those belonging to Ulrika, my suggestion to look up porn was duly ignored. Later in the afternoon we clear the collective hangovers by playing golf, Lance Higgins wins the inaugural Compervan Masters after Gary drops twelve shots on the last hole. Later we drive to a damp St Agnes, where Gary prepares a remarkably good fish curry (with lentil side dish and popodoms) in the confined space of the compervon. Even more remarkable he later makes similar smells from the even smaller confines of his underpants. There's just time for a few pints at the local pub with Pete Miller and Andrew George before retiring for a good nights sleep in the van, which still smells delightfully of curry, for a change - Perfect.

WEDNESDAY:
There were very few (mobile) house-rules for the compervon, the most important for all residents was Rule 1: "no number twos in the on-board lavatory" So over the week we all managed a good look at the insides of Cornish Public Conveniences. Including those at St Agnes, for obvious reasons. The safari around the north coast continued, we stopped for 'elevensies' in Perranporth. Unfortunately the tide that morning was in Wales, Andy, Roger, Steve, and Alan went in search of exercise and a good healthy walk. Gary and Lance stayed on the beach, not that the weather warranted any sunbathing but Perranporth boasts an unusual feature of a pub on the sand, staffed by some good-looking antipodian surfing babes. Weather apart though we had a nice enough day. Newquay, being what it is - Cornwall's most popular tourist resort, is not easy for a group of new age travellers to make camp. It was felt that the un-welcoming signs in the car parks "No Overnight Parking - £200 fine" were not idle threats - due mainly to the number of surfers complete with VWs. The problem was compounded by the fact that the van was too big to negotiate the lane to the football club car park. Piss heads we might be but beaten we won't. We landed on our feet when we stumbled on the Harvester, a pub next door to where the team were staying. The publican was happy to have us stay in his Car Park as long as we used his pub - what a sacrifice! There were other benefits at the time unknown, like a late bar for residents! and a full English breakfast in the morning. That was later but the night before saw a pub crawl around Cornwall's Blackpool-on-sea, and another sing song in Newquay F.C.'s bar. However, we really gave the bar some stick after we had suffered the embarrassment of seeing City draw 2-2 with a bunch of amateurs. There were an alarming number of Plymouth Argyle fans amongst the small crowd present to witness just how crap we are. There's only one thing for it ... we get drunk. Thankfully, we didn' t have far to walk (or stagger) to bed.

THURSDAY:
Bad heads all round, as we wave goodbye to Steve and Lance as they head back to Exeter. The remaining travellers continue north we drop anchor in Widemouth Bay, just west of Bude where between showers Big Gary goes surfing, donning a wetsuit clearly two sizes too small and ignoring all the beached whale jokes to perform impressively in the white water/surf. After an hour or so, the beach is deemed unsafe and everyone is told to leave the water ... presumably Gary was mistaken for a ‘free willy’, the killer whale, not any thing else!. After a lunchtime barbecue, we spend the afternoon cleaning out the van which is to be returned to the hire company on Friday. We had been wondering for a while why the compervon's toilet had been blocked, and closer inspection reveals a giant big-job is responsible. We were all stunned how could it be? Rule 1, - no No.2s in the on board toilet! Gary's attempts to remove the log go horribly wrong, removal of the toilet cassette for cleaning means that the offending item drops into the internal compartment. Eventually it is dislodged, and rolls clear of the compervon but the situation gets worse - we now spend half an hour, whilst violently retching, throwing buckets of water at a big lump of shit in the middle of a public car park in an attempt to wash it out of harms way into a gully. The locals aren't impressed. Once back on the road we visit a jet-wash to clean away all final traces. At last with the van turd free, we make the long drive back to God's County - Devon, and spend a pleasant evening in the town of Totnes which boasts the highest concentration of gorgeous females that any of us had seen since leaving Oslo.

FRIDAY:
The compervon is returned to the hire company in Plymouth ... yes, we spent an entire week in a Plymouth van, what were we thinking of? Why did we bother cleaning it out? After a wash and brush up in some public showers in Torquay intended for yachtsmen We spend a relaxing Friday riding around South Devon on steam trains, buses and boats. In the evening, we suffer the misfortune of drinking more than a few pints of cider with Marius G Vik a Norwegian City fan (winner of the Nobel Prize for Shit Footwear) who spent the summer working in Torquay.

SATURDAY:
Beer in pubs. Beer on the beach. More beer in more pubs. A curry (and some more beer), More beer in yet more pubs followed by yet more beer in another very bad nightclub. Imaginative, eh ? By the end of the night Alan is so pissed that he attempts to chat up a girl by telling her about the steam train he’d been on.

SUNDAY:
Sundays in summer are all about cricket. As Devon's county side are not in the 'Premier League' of English cricket, so we head back to Taunton to watch Somerset get beaten by Hampshire. It was a marvellous game, with the visitors setting a total of just over 200 runs, largely thanks to the efforts of England batsman Robin Smith who scored a splendid century. Somerset lose an early wicket and soon fall behind the required run rate. There is an entertaining late batting flurry from Andrew Caddick, but the West Country County are eventually skittled out some way short of their target. It will never replace the real thing (football) though. All this excitement in only six hours, and City's first game of the season at Mansfield only two weeks away.