LUC Ronchin Tournoi Jacques Lévy - Arrangements

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Lille, France Friday 16, Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 March 2018

This is an excellent, well run and sociable tournament in which Scottish Thistles have been regular participants, never finishing lower than fourth in the last six years. As with all Scottish Thistles events, everyone is guaranteed a fair share of pitch time.

Hotel accommodation will once more be organised by LUC Ronchin Hockey Club in the Hotel Mercure Lille Aéroport at €85 per night for a double or twin room, including breakfast; single room €75. There is a taxe de séjour of about €3 per person per night in addition. The tournament fee for 2018 is €290 per team (around €18 per player) plus lunches on the Saturday and Sunday (€16 each day). On Saturday evening there will be a dinner in the Mercure (€45 per person) - this is optional but you are encouraged to attend.

Jacques Lévy Tournament 2018

There will be a 'cultural visit' for non participants on the Saturday afternoon - details of this are not yet available.

Taxis to and from the ground (if there are not enough cars) are an additional expense. You should also budget for a taxi to and from the station if you are travelling by train, though you can take public transport at a much lower cost. We normally present a bottle of club whisky to each opposing team and to the organisers.

Matches begin at 13:30 on Friday 16 March and the final match will start at 14:00 on Sunday 18 March, with the prizegiving soon after the finish of the match, at around 14:45.

Squads

For the first time, we will be entering two teams for the Jacques Lévy Tournament: Scottish Thistles Blue, captained by Derek Johnstone and Scottish Thistles White, captained by Tim Lorimer. As suggested by the names, the Blue team will normally play in blue shirts and the White team in white shirts, but everyone should bring both blue and white shirts.

Scottish Thistles Blue

Derek Johnstone (cpt), Nigel Dixon (gk), Ian Downie, David Ballingall, John Bennett, Ian Pett, Murdoch Shirreffs, Ian McCreath, George Pickett, Dannie Onn, Gerry McBride, Kieran McLernan, Sandy Weir, John Candlin

Scottish Thistles White

Tim Lorimer (cpt), Dick Pearce (gk), Alan Parker, Mike McInally, Graham Conkie, Tony Walker, Neil Ward, Duncan Mitchell, Peter Klein, Peter Haines, John Smith, Donald Dunbar, Brian de Mattos, Keith Raper, John Sudale

Ladies

Marion Bennett, Catherine Downie, Sue Klein, Mairi de Mattos, Jackie Parker, Eileen Pearce, Jenny Shirreffs, Ros Sudale. There will be a Ladies Tour on Saturday 17 March but details are still not available.

Following the withdrawal of Egypt, there are seven teams in the tournament: England LX, France A, France B, Scottish Thistles Blue, Scottish Thistles White and Welsh Dragons. They will each play all the other teams in the round robin on the first two days. The teams finishing in the first three positions in the round robin will play off on the final day against each other for the first three places overall and the teams finishing fourth to sixth will do the same. All teams will play a total of seven matches of two twenty minute halves.

Travel

You will need to organise your own travel to Lille. The main possibilities are

You can fly to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and take the TGV to Lille - Easyjet and Flybe have flights from Edinburgh and Glasgow to CDG, and you can fly Air France from Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. If you have not already booked your train from CDG, you will be cheaper booking online than buying a ticket at Charles de Gaulle Station, though the cheapest seats for the outward journey on Thursday 15 March have already gone.

You can fly out on Friday 16 March (07:00) and back on Sunday 18 March (21:20) with EasyJet from Edinburgh to Paris Charles de Gaulle, though if you don't mind the extra time spent in France, the saving by taking the cheaper flights on the Thursday and Monday may well cancel out the extra hotel cost. There is not much difference in price with the Air France flights, which are currently similar to the higher EasyJet prices. There's no suitable EasyJet flight from Glasgow to CDG on Friday 16 March but there is an evening flight back to Glasgow on Sunday 18 March (21:15). Air France don't have direct flights from Glasgow to Paris.

You should be able to book Eurostar trains online from Friday 22 December but you may need to wait till the following week to book through trains from Scotland. You may be able to book separately for Scotland-London tickets on the Virgin Trains East Coast website from Friday 8 October, when they are likely to be at their cheapest.