DAY 5

THURSDAY, JULY 22

ONE way or another, there's been a lot of travelling done this week.

For at start, there was the near-600 mile journey from Plymouth, via Skelmersdale, to get here.

Then, such is the vastness of the Stirling University campus, the players have been ferried to training every day on the new, jet-black and rather sinister-looking team bus, while the two matches, against Livingston and Unirea, have been a good drive away from base, at Bathgate and Glasgow, respectively.

For two of the lads, that mileage was dwarfed by the efforts they made to take the high road to be in Scotland for the Greens. Kári Árnáson flew into Glasgow Airport from Reykjavik via Heathrow on Sunday, and Zoltan Szélesi passed through the same arrival lounge 24 hours later, by way of Gatwick.

Strange, then, given all the road-work they have put in that the boys should spend part of their day off...driving.

Okay, then, a few dozen laps around the indoor track at Falkirk's Xtremekarting wasn't the same as motoring on Her Majesty's highways (although, having seen a few of the lads behind the wheel, there wasn't that much difference). It certainly looked a lot more fun and, given that it was footballers taking part, it was very competitive.

Most of the squad took part. Ro, along with Mat and young Summers sat it out, having decided that (a) he wasn't that interested in speed, and (b) the karts were not made for 6ft 4in Frenchmen.

It soon emerged that '(a)' was a lie, as he and Mat eagerly watched the 18th stage of the Tour de France in which Alberto Contador scorched around the time-trial at speeds possibly greater than the top Green karter - Gary Sawyer, aka 'the Falkirk Flyer' - managed on the track.

Everyone gave Rory 'Fiery' Fallon a wide berth, obviously not wishing to upset him after seeing his reaction to the shenanigans of Unirea's defenders on Wednesday night.

For those of you who haven't seen Dave Rowntree's excellent pictures, Rory was kicked, nipped and gouged by his opponents on the Balgray Playing Fields, a sequence of misdemeanours which turned the normally so-laidback-he's-horizontal Kiwi into something that would have had the Incredible Hulk away on his green toes.

Such was the positive effect to being mugged on Rory's form, that Luggy suggested a severe working over before the kick-off of every game might be the answer to all Pilgrims' prayers, while Summers senior reckons we should sign a Romanian player, not to play, but just to wind Rory up.

While the players made it to Glasgow (with Rory giving Romanian restaurants a wide berth), the coach did not. Unfortunately, something vital in the engine department gave up the ghost, which is about as detailed as my knowledge of mechanics goes.

Mal, the coach driver, has not had the best of trips, to be honest. Right at the start of the week, while carrying out a recce on Skelmersdale's ground in order to take down the kit before the players arrived for the game, he got lost.

He, being a man, will, of course, tell you that he did not get lost at all, but we did seem to develop a fondness for going around the same one-way system a few times.

In the end, the Skem chairman came to our rescue by driving out to meet us in his blue Landrover (registration: 0005KEM) and bringing us in. It transpired we'd been looking for the wrong ground.

Anyway, Mal didn 't need to worry about taking the boys home after the Unirea match, as they stayed on in Glasgow to appreciate the delights of the former European City of Culture, and returned to HQ later in taxis.

I absolutely refuse to reveal any of the juicy and salacious stories that were doing the rounds this morning around the breakfast table about what they got up to in the curry capital of the UK, except to say two things.

Firstly, it is a well-known rule that what goes on tour stays on tour.

Secondly, there weren't any.