First up a shout out to Horacio at Coco Beach!!! The first beer free for the Burnley Boys was certainly well appreciated. The first may have been free, but the next 10 rounds weren’t, and although he had dropped his prices to 1€ for the tournament with 20 people in the round he did pretty well out of the boys!!! They are here until Tuesday and will be making Coco Beach their base during the day, so a good result for a very popular advertiser on the site.

As far as the rugby went it was a great day, with some very good teams (unfortunately not Almerimar or Burnley), but with the prize money up to 1.500€ this year it was no surprise that it attracted such good teams (rumour had it that one Romanian team refused to attend as they wouldn’t have their expenses covered!).

The final was an exceptionally good match between Madrid and Romania (2nd team I guess), with Romania winning. A great game of rugby ……… not something that could be said about the Almerimar teams games (lost 4) and Burnley did little better (won 2, lost 2).

The organisation was excellent. Many teams were camping on the rugby pitch, and the players had a lunch provided. The two pitches were in good condition i.e. well watered and raked of any large stones etc, and there was a reasonable crowd, but mainly associated with the teams. It would have been nice to have seen more people there, especially those that moan that nothing much happens here!!

As for me I got there about half way through the group games having had a very pleasant lunch with Sands at Café Noray. I had figured it would be a long day …….

First person I saw was Kev (friend that used to live here and is now back in Burnley) and I was happily catching up with him when Marcus stuck a Whisky & Coke in my hand. Damn you Marcus!!!! Having caught up with the Burnley Boys I went to say hello to the Almerimar (El Ejido) Boys and guess what? Marcus popped up with a Whisky & Coke for me. Back at the Burnley tent (they had erected individual shelters this year) I escaped Marcus only to bump into Stuart the Burnley mascot (he is a very charismatic rogue that travels with them on their tours - doesn’t play rugby just drinks) who was guarding with equal intensity the bag with all the passports in, and the barrel with all the beer in. He insisted that it was too much of a responsibility and the only way he could see out of it was to drink all the beer so he didn’t have to worry about guarding it. He needed some help …….

I did manage to see the final Almerimar game (they are getting worse not better!!) and the last two Burnley games, the final one was especially entertaining as they ‘just went for it’, played really well and entertained (and bemused) the crowd and opposition with frequent ‘dying fly’ impersonations at regular intervals.

After an hour or so in Coco Beach we ventured out for the final. After that I popped home to drop of the camera then headed back to the rugby pitch for a truly awful BBQ (i.e. it had all but run out by the time we arrived) and terrible beer (problems with the pump meant your glass was 1/2 forth, warm and took an age to serve).

After a few traditional rugby drinking games (at which the Burnley Boys excelled and were undefeated) we headed to the music bars, and that as they say is all she wrote!!!!

Video

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Photos

As usual you can see more photos over on the Flickr account and the Web Gallery.

About Almerimar

Almerimar is located in the region of Andalucia, Spain. The nearest airport is 30km away in Almeria. Other airports that are within 3 hours include Malaga, Murcia, Granada, and Alicanti. Other holiday resorts in the region include Mojacar , Aguadulce and Roquetas de Mar

Almerimar is also one of the largest marinas in Spain with over 2,000 births and excellent boatyard facilities.