Paintugal writeup

Event info:

Introduction

It's now our 6th Year of attending Paintugal. Now a permanent fixture to the international calendar, this game has the longest planning involved with flights booked in February, ferries booked and bags packed well in advance. Ricktion set off a few days before with a 1600 mile journey in the team van. The rest of us flew to Lisbon direct, although a few had issues due to RyanAir comedy.

This year due to the increased numbers we have to hire an extra vehicle (mini bus) to take everybody. It was interesting to see how many people wanted to go in the hire van instead of ricks van which he had be living in for 5 days and was a little 'ripe'.

We arrived mid-afternoon on Friday and got straight on the beer. Much bollocks was spoken and as other teams arrived the drinking party got started; we knew we did not have to be up until noon we stayed up late (10pm).

A traditional Portuguese meal was delivered, and all was good... except in our arteries, which are now one strong coffee away from aggressive angina.

We awoke to the bountiful sound of church bells, road digging and a grumpy bar manager complaining about an unpaid bar bill.

Saturday game

We minced up to site around 11 and in a rare move for UE we started to kit up and get ready. We were all on the start line ready to go at the appointed 3pm start time. As you might expect for Paintugal we started around 4:15 so bang on time then!

Initially we took a good field position and started to score points, but the opposition began to get the upper hand in numbers and took the high ground. From then on it was a slow retreat back to the start line, and after some organisation changes and we restarted with 30 mins to go. 22mins later the game ended with a total loss. We immediately went to the pub!

Saturday night

The Paintugal party after last years failed piss-up in brewery farce, Paintugal were not going to make the same mistake twice. This time they set up shop next to the local VD clinic (actual fact). The venue was equipped to feed 80 people so when 150 turned up you can appreciate that half the people there had a long wait for food.

We finally got food around 10:30pm, by which time we were all drunk. We adjourned to the bar next door to continue into the night, and for once this was quite a good do. It had an outside bar complete with hog roast which came in handy for the ones that did not get fed at the 'meal'.

As the various members of UE got drunk and caused trouble, I went to bed before the police and child services arrived.

We awoke to the bountiful sound of church bells, road digging and a grumpy bar manager complaining about an unpaid bar bill.

Sunday

Game-on was due at 12 noon, the hottest part of the day with temperatures getting up to 30 degrees. We were getting hot even just waiting. The game eventually started around 12:45, which is not bad for Paintugal.

Similar to Friday, the opposition started with the high ground and took a commanding position. However, the terrain was large enough that we could flank and attack the main objectives. It was actually a nice site to play, but the hills were a little too high for the less fit ones and people started to fall by the way side as the day went on.

For the end-game there was one single objective at the mount of the main hill, with a good hard battle. I still don't know why we lost the game but we had fun.

Then came the main event 'Presentataugal 2017' : 3 hours of sitting in the sun while every player gets an award for turning-up. This year UE collected one, meaning that for 6 years in row we have won. We are truly elite.

It is also worth noting at this point, that a Crate of beer was 16 euros. As we began to drink, the crates stacked up. Thanks to these stacked empty crates we realised that the correct unit for beer is now metres.

After drinking Jim from Warped's height, the end of presentation and raffle was finally done. We had done 6 crates of 20 bottles each; it was time to celebrate so we immediately went to the pub!

After a Sagres flavoured freshen up, we ventured to an all you can eat pizza restaurant. The Gibbos promptly put their claim to the test and put them out of business.

The next day we awoke to the bountiful sound of church bells, road digging and a grumpy bar manager.

After coffee and crepes we drove to Lisbon for the flight home, while Rick ventured north to Porto for sightseeing with Lima Bravo. Another year done!