"It has not rained for months and one sure way of guaranteeing rain is to have a Stags Spring away day, especially if it is held in Leicestershire. And sure enough the groundkeepers wish (have you seen him doing the rain dance each afternoon about 6pm?) came true or at least in did in Ullesthorpe.

36 brave souls turned up even though the forecast was constant rain with intermittent storms. A lot of moaning but that is not unusual for Stags. To satisfy one of the Stags family commitments we sent him out first and unfortunately it was a three ball. According to them they finished an hour and ten minutes ahead of the next group who had been affected by an equipment malfunction (as well as a wimpish Stag) and two of that group had to share the task of pushing the wimp's trolley for the last nine holes. I think he must have had lead bars in the bag.

We were blessed by the appearance of the bard although his golf has deteriorated since he left for Llandudno but it was great to see him and it is a pity he is still not writing these reports.

We started with superb bacon rolls and good coffee and high anticipation tempered by a concern that the wetware may not be sufficient for what was coming.

However general good humour persisted, or perhaps it was gallows humour! The course was wet, something we haven't seen for weeks and long with many very long par fours. Scoring was therefore not brilliant. Persistent rain for our opening nine holes, was followed by a break in the rain when wet ware was discarded and the sun hoped for. The "dry" lasted about three holes before the wind got up, black clouds enveloped the skies, and really heavy rain started which caused all the Stags to re-don wet ware and run for the trees. This was the clearing up shower and later groups were able to dry out a bit in the late afternoon sun.

The lunch was served on a rolling basis and was coq au vin and al dente vegetables. Our resident master chef refuted the claim that it was coq au vin as evidently the coq had not been marinated in red wine for the appropriate time. You get all sorts!!

Prize giving followed with the nearest the pin won by Mick Brown, longest drive (the marker found after most Stags third shot) was won by Martin Darbey. In fourth place with 32 points was Jim Jobson, third was Bernie Ray with better back 3, second was basher Darbey with better back 9 and the winner with 33 points was Rohit Shah who also won the Bill Collier Cup, the first time it had been played for for four years.

The prizes were presented by a Past Stags Captain, the estimable John D Woodward. Now many of the more recent Stags may not know that John was a captain as his photo is not displayed in the rogue's gallery in the Changing Rooms. This is because John is notably shy and does not like his photo taken in case he is mistaken for Dorian Gray. We are attempting to rectify this so watch this space (or indeed the rogues gallery)

Scores on the day were as follows