Plot

An adolescent British field hockey team goes to Holland, where they find something far more interesting than tulips and windmills - hot, sexy women! They are so busy chasing girls that they forget all about their hockey match.

English public school boys go on a school hockey trip to the Netherlands. However they are much more interested in Dutch girls than they are in hockey. In charge of them is their dour games teacher Mr Mole, played brilliantly by Bill Patterson, a puritan in the best Scottish tradition with a Van Gogh fixation.

Colin Firth plays the sensitive young Neil Truelove, a man who is so keen to meet the fabled Dutch girls that he puts lead in his hockey stick to get on the team, and James Wilby plays his caddish, quintessentially English friend Dundine.

On arrival in Holland, Neil finds himself lodged with uncouth Northerner Lydon Baines Jellicoe (a superb comic turn by Timothy Spall), a fat unattractive glutton with no personal hygiene and a strange way with women which confounds the rest of his team-mates.

On their first practice session Neils pubescent beauty attracts a group of Dutch girls, among them the blond apple-cheeked Romelia (Gusta Gerritsen) who takes a particular shine to Neil. She invites him to the club disco and this causes so much commotion amongst the other boys that they lose their first match 7- Nil, as they are too busy discussing their wardrobe for the disco to pay attention to the game.

The disco sets the tone for the rest of the film in which all the boys except Lyndon are foiled in their attempts to sample the delights of Dutch women. Along the way is a hilarious unplanned trip to the Red Light District in which Cone (Robert Addie) and Simon (Christopher Beaumont) attempt unsuccessfully to obtain the services of a prostitute, a betrayal of Neil by his friend Dundine over Romelia, and a showdown with Lyndons flea-infected fur coat. Look out also for a hilarious performance from Daniel Chatto as the neurotic team captain.

Firth is the emotional heart of the film. His sweet diffidence in his scenes with Romelia is unforgettable and he strikes the necessary pensive and romantic note in this coming of age movie. His performance was so lovable that one of the gay crew members was moved to kiss him when the shooting finished.