Sat (5/6) - Set off for Barcelona and Sitges baby for the first leg of our duck-breaking tour (Barcelona, Hampden and The Admirals mascot)! Arriving in the early evening we set off for Sitges Sports Bar. Passing alongside side the Hotel Subur adjacent to it, there's suddenly a boom boom boom on the one of the window panes! It's not other than big Sam Clancy, the Dragons DL coach giving us a big Spanish welcome!

Sam would join us for a bit later during the fan party (wonderfully set up by John and Montse of Sitges Sack) where we got the chance to properly induct him into the Cheddarhead Hall of Fame.

After watching the Fire blank the Thunder 29-0 we headed off to Coco Rico for some serious clubbing! A great night was had by all the Claymores fans in the clubs and on the beach in Sitges.

Sun (6/6) - GameDay. Cheddars miss the Sitges Sack bus, and arrive at the stadium just as the other Claymore fans, and Sitges Sack have finished doing all the hard work in setting up their banners in the stadium. Not bad!

Olympic Stadium baby!

Dragons front office gets the cheddar welcome!

It's the pre-game FOX show! From L to R : Ray Bentley (our old pal from last year), Bill Maas (definitely NOT Brian Baldinger - Bill's far better looking!) and Troy Aikman. Ray was game in messing up his TV hair with a pre-game cheddaring, while Troy showed his Cowboy loyalty in being anti-Cheese even if ain't from Wisconsin! Thanks for the plug during the game guys -it was great to finally have the cheddarhead telestrated live on coast to coast network TV!

Mark shows his newly patented Claymore head umbrella. You'd never catch us with something so stupid on our heads!

Jock and Preston check out the pre-game BBQ set up by the Dragons fan clubs Sitges Sack and Huddle.

Foto! Foto! Foto! Dragons and Claymores fans unite pre-game. Big thanks to Montse (#95) as always!

Illena from Huddle gets Cheddared!

You're never too young to get cheddared!

Power Party Barcelona style! This was the best one we've been to in our many trips to Barca. There were plenty of tables to sit down and drink beer and a good all round party atmosphere! You may spot two Fire fans in Claymores shirts in this shot. Yes it's those Cologne boys Hansie and Knippi! (at the back busy doing some babe watching) They came out to Barca to cheer us on, rather than go to Berlin and cheer for Fire. They'll stay out there all week and watch the Fire play next week. Sorry our boys let you down again ...

There were cheerleaders also!

Plus you get to bump into all sorts of folk like this well-mannered gentleman! I bet you wish you hadn't ordered all those cheddars now Wil!

This guy is somebody important that we had to cheddar! Answers on a postcard ...

Doug from St. Cloud State - this one's for you!

And so onto the game. Could we break our duck of never having won in Barcelona?

It started so well ...

Dameyune Craig had another blockbuster first half passing for over 250 yards and 3TD's, while running for another in giving us a 28-3 lead. The small group of Claymore fans were giddy by this stage. We were getting jiggy with it all right!

Even a late Barcelona TD with 2 seconds left, when Dragon WR Brian Finneran appeared to have foot in the stands didn't dampen our spirits!

Cheered off at halftime! What a celebration! Sadly some of our players however figured it was just a 30 minute game because the scenes when next jogged past us 2 hours later were very different ...

Lawrence Phillips (#2) looks for the end zone. He'd find it three times in the 2nd half...

Nervous 2nd half faces. We all could sense our World Bowl dreams slip sliding away with every Dragon point. And our worse fears were confirmed when Lawrence Phillips scampered 72 yards to paydirt with just over two minutes left to cap a remarkable 42-35 comeback victory for the Dragons. It set a record for the largest margin of comeback in league history (25 points). Boy are we getting sick of 42-35 scorelines!

WEEK 8 CHEDDAR AWARDS

MVP - Kevin Drake. 5 grabs for 109 yards and 1 TD, his best game of the season. His 44-yard bomb from Craig just before half-time looked to have given us an insurmountable 28-3 lead.

4th Quarter to Forget - Poor Dameyune. Before the disastrous last drive where we clearly weren't used to not having called all our time outs by the end of the 3rd quarter, he had gone INT-FUMBLE-INT which proved very costly. But the guy's not to blame - right now we are playing as a one-man team and you can't put all that weight on his shoulders.

Missing in Action I - Dragons P Jeff Beckley. Anybody see this guy in the 2nd half?

Missing in Action II - Deeeee - fense! Another 42 points puts our season total at 239 - an average of almost 30 a game! Worse than Berlin! The last 2 weeks we've been outscored 56-7 in the 2nd half!

Missing in Action III - TE Shon Bell. Another no catch game means defeat for the Claymores. Getting out jumped by Dragons S Greg Malo for an INT in the last few minutes turned out to be a key play.

After the game, many tears were cried. We had all but blown our World Bowl hopes. From 1st to 4th in 2 hours was a shattering ride and was hard to swallow. But we regained our composure (and Shuggie's bag which had been stolen, albeit minus a jacket) and congratulated the Dragons fans on a great victory.

After seeing the players onto the buses, and waving them off, it was time to board our own bus for Sitges and what would turn out to be the wildest night of the season so far ...

The Legend looks glum - but hey there's Dragon victory champagne to be drunk!

And that victory champagne would be provided by none other than Miguel "Big Mig" Matas, the proud owner of the Sports Bar and Hotel Subur! Big thanks to the big guy as always. This time when he saw we were hungry, and the players buffet had all been finished by The Legend, he asked one of his waitress's to get some food from the kitchen. On being told the kitchen was closed - he retorted "No, the kitchen is OPEN!" Hey he's the owner!

Sam Clancy and his victory cigar!

Jack! We got a chance to properly induct Dragons head coach Jack Bicknell into the Cheddarhead Hall of Fame! We watched some of the game on TV with the coach, and he conceded that he got away with one with Finneran's TD. We want replay!

Dragons QB Todd Bouman gets the Cheddar treatment - he played a hell of a game. And yes before you ask, that dude on the right IS Claymore WR Yo Murphy out drinking with the Dragons! Yo hadn't been traded post-game, he was simply catching up with old Viking buddy Todd. Yo later claimed he had been kidnapped!

Shuggie gets corralled by Dragons OT Deron Thorp. And boy it wouldn't be the last time that would happen on this night!

That would be Dragons P Jeff Beckley! If Jeff looks like a little wasted, it's probably because he got back to the bar early since his services weren't required in the 2nd half!

Yes Jesus - the Dragons did really score 39 points in 30 minutes and 5 seconds!

After the Sports Bar it was off to a club called Titos for more partying ...

And that would mean more Deron along the way! As soon as Deron swiped a cheddar and plunked in on his head he became an absolute terror! The Cheddar Monster was born! Deron would gladly shout to any passer-by how the Dragons kicked the Claymores ass that night!

Deron's good buddy WR Marco "Speedy Gonzalez" Martos. We met Speedy and Deron in Waterstone's earlier in the season. They could have done with reading up on soccer hooligans, as they both involved with some ugly scenes in Sitges a couple weeks back with some f**kin asshole Man Utd fans who wanted to fight Deron because they thought he was German. Speedy jumped to the rescue however.

The partying last long and hard outside Tito's. Miguel dons the Cheddar again, here with the young lady who helped get us some food in the bar. Other notable cheddarings at Tito's were Brian Finneran, Alonzo Johnson and Cam Quayle among others. The drink was going down far too well as some of the name mix-ups were beginning as Preston was obsessed with calling Greg Malo, Dante for a good half hour!

Onto another club whose name escapes us. By this stage the Cheddar Monster is fully developed, screaming and hollering down the small Sitges streets as we leave Tito's. He gives a good rendition of "Boom, Boom, Boom ... Claymores Suck!" waking anybody who happens to be asleep. Then he spends a good hour on the dance shaking his booty complete with cheddarhead. He's a crazy man!

Suddenly it was 4am, and we realised we hadn't made our traditional post-game trip to Paddy's Bar. Unknown to us Paddy's Bar had kicked out some other Claymore fans at about 3.30am for closing, but we managed to convince them to serve up one more beer! Many thanks - we promise to spend longer in there next year!

Then things ... got real ugly. How else can we put it? Cheddar dipping of skin in the sea baby at 5am! Not a pretty sight at all.

Not pretty for Shuggie, who only 2 and a half hours later would have to get up and put his suit on and get back to the airport for a day's work at the Bank of Scotland!

Then just when things couldn't get any worse ... The Cheddar Monster and his lady friend turned up on the beach! Preston then spent a good few minutes telling Deron how we kicked his ass in the first half, and how he then kicked ours in the 2nd - all the time doing this by waving his big hairy white ass in his face! Deron - "You got that shave that hairy ass!"

The Monster then further retorted by calling out "YER A BUNCH OF SHEEPSHAGGERS!" This pandemonium would continue for several minutes before Deron appeared to head back to the Sports Bar.

Then we sort of dressed, and started making our own way back only to run into Bill Maas and his lady friend on the promenade. After Preston calling him Brian again, he finally us out of our misery be coldly telling us "I'm not Brian!" Ooops. Preston, desperately trying to make amends, reaches into his drunken brain for a stat saver - by telling him "You blocked a field goal in 87 which Kevin Ross returned for TD". (True). Bill then shoots him down by saying - "I blocked 2 that year!" No comeback from that one!

Then slowly limping back to the hotel, passing Hotel Subur we run into The Cheddar Monster who is still full of action! We have to suffer a bunch of more sheepshagging abuse before we are finally let off to go back to our hotel for some sleep!

Monday (7/6) and there was still one thing left to do. Cheddar Lawrence Phillips of course! Lawrence had been in Barca and not Sitges on Sunday night so we had no chance - but he was back on Monday. However my Cheddar was still soaking from the sea only hours earlier, and I guess if Lawrence had known what it been covering up a good part of last night while I was talking to The Cheddar Monster he wouldn't have been too pleased! So that was as close to his head as I was going put that thing! Good luck in the NFL Lawrence!

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