Crusaders Enjoy The Cumbria Festival

On Saturday Crusaders made the journey West to the Border City of Carlisle, for the Cumbria Festival. Always a good event.

Despite the heavy football traffic, everyone arrived in good order and quickly got ready for our first game against Arlecdon Rams Masters. Arlecdon are a really good and experienced Masters outfit, so this game would also be a test on how far we’ve come in learning Masters. The game was an absolute cracker, Arlecdon were very effective with their tight support before shipping the ball wide to some well placed big runners. For our part, Crusaders managed some great line breaks of their own and some smart wide plays. Butch, Ben and Alex proved a handful in the middle. Whilst our guests Gaitesy and Gary were the start point for a very effective left hand edge, which started our scoring with a try for Darren in the corner.

In defence, Ali “Car Park” was everywhere and his cover tackling got us off the hook on a number of occasions.

Our second game was against another Cumbrian outfit, Barrow Masters. This game was going to be a lot different to the first, with the Barrowvians sporting no Black or White shorters, a few Red shorters, lots of Gold shorters some with the dreaded tags, some without. They also had the legend that is Vic in his Blue shorts. Barrow were superbly steered around by their Red shorters and were very effective on the wide shot. Crusaders worked hard for their yardage, keeping the ball alive and away from the sea of Gold where possible, to create some well worked tries.

Unfortunately the game was cut slightly short when Jay decided to headbutt a Gold shorter, who was moving at pace, in the chest. Ouch! Luckily, after a brief stay in Carlisle’s finest NHS facility he is now back home, ringing in Catterick Best Kebabs largest ever order, having spent 24+ hours on Nil By Mouth!

As always Carlisle Masters put on a great event and it was nice to have a couple of beers with the other teams and enjoy a great spread that was laid on.

Jase, Alex, Darren, Don and Gaz decided to stay overnight, post festival. After a couple of beers in the hotel, they wandered into town and it was great to meet up with the Masters players from Arlecdon, Barrow and Carlisle. They were definitely jealous of the shapes the Crusaders lads were cutting on the dancefloor in Deja Vu …. honest!

Our next Masters game is on the 23 May, at home, against Doncaster Toll Bar.

Crusaders Masters would also like to thank the new club shirt sponsors;

Fusion Joinery, Specsavers and Hearing Centre Harrogate, eCreative Designs and Emmels Tree and Garden Services.

If you would like to get involved with Crusaders Masters, just drop us a line for more information.