The 99th Garrison was asked by Mark Busby of MB Management to help out at a charity football match on Sunday 27th May, 2012 at the B2net stadium in Chesterfield between the Chesterfield Legends and a team of actors from Eastenders, Waterloo Road, Coronation Street and Emmerdale. I went along with Paul, Darran Jim and Craig from the 99th and we also had The Stig and a Clone Warrior attend as well. Here we are with the "Moon" brothers from Eastenders..... I never watch soaps so didn't recognise them but they were nice lads!
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The Craigster had stayed at base on Saturday night as we had been out with my sister, brother in law, niece [Hazel, David and Lucy] and Paul Alexander in Manchester to celebrate Craig's 21st on the 23rd and for getting his first ever job - straight from Uni- testing test pc games - which he starts today [the 28th!] Well done and well deserved! Good Luck Craig! One of the many pubs we went to was the Mark Addy but we also went to the Ox Noble amongst others before getting the train back to base; arriving back at just gone midnight having been out since midday!
We needed to be at the venue for 10:30 so left base about 9:30 which gave us a bit of time to come round from our varying degrees of hangover from the birthday celebrations but I don't think any of us were relishing the thought of wearing our armour in what already felt that it was going to be the hottest day of the year so far.
Poor Darran decided to wear his black Shadow Trooper and was very warm indeed ... and with a lot of people thinking he was Darth Vader! lol
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Once at the venue [after a very scenic drive through glorious Derbyshire] we met up with Mark and also Paul, Maria, Paul W, Darran and Rob. We then had to be outside in armour for 11:50 so had plenty of time to get ready and recover more from our hangovers!
Poor Sidley.... he must have been really, really, really, really hot!!
Once outside, it was, as had been expected, very, very, very hot and I needed to find shade to stand in where ever I could. Its fair to say that this match wasn't as busy as the one we had done for Mark at Notts Forest on the 13th May and the collections pots were far too light but we were still very popular apart from a couple of little ones who I unintentionally made cry and run for mummy, although for most of the day, I was referred to as the "little one" lol. We even did a spot of boogying in the shade above Elton john's poster which went down very well and may even have been filmed!
We de-kitted as the match started at 3:00pm having had a round of applause from the crowds as we left and then we free to get changed and watch the match. We were given some seats on the stand that had been reserved for us but at half time, I decided to move as they were in the shade and I was getting cool in the breeze and I moved over to the other side of the stadium which was still in the sun and gradually all the others followed me! I also got the compare of the match to wish Craig happy 21st birthday on the tannoy system! We were also treated to a surprise of a Dakota DC3 flying over us three times and then the theme tune to Dad's Army was played on the tannoy system with everyone singing along!! It was a case of plane stopped play!
We watched the remainder of the match [including one between Derbyshire Constabulary and Nottinghamshire Police] at half time and then left for the day. We could have stayed for the post match buffet and mingle with the soap stars and players but we were all tired and needed to get Craig back to base and then back home ready to start work the following morning.
