Scottish goalkeeping

With Winter still very much in attendance it was another parky Friday night at Coram Fields on the 22^nd March. Actually, never mind parky – it was downright Arctic. With Simon Gas back from his week’s sabbatical the Bristolian soccer mastermind arrived with a pre-prepared set of teams. They were as follows:

Bibs: Ian Arsenal, Ian West Brom, Danny, Yev, Paul, Simon Inky, Joe

Colours: Ross, Alan, Simon Gas, Liam, Geoff, Andy, me

I thought that the Bibs looked slightly stronger on paper, but as is proving the rule rather than exception on the new domain, one team’s advantage was amplified rather unkindly and despite the best efforts of the Colours team they were on the wrong side of a 9-1 reverse. 

The Tale of the Tape, if you will, was that the Bibs hurtled into a 2-0 lead via goals with Yev and Danny, (I think). There then followed what felt like a lengthy period of stalemate, before the Colours committed footballing hari-kari; from a Colours corner they managed to gift possession to the Bibs and Yev stole through virtually unopposed with all six outfield Colours in the attacking half of the pitch. 

That felt like a crucial goal and so it proved. With Danny and the Ians (appearing tonight at the Dublin Castle: £8 admission, £6 concessions) marshalling superbly from the back Yev was able to feast on the service from Joe and Simon Ink and gorged himself like a Transylvanian nobleman on the porous Colours defending. The Colours solitary goal – although we hit the post twice – came from Andy, who took some good positions up front and could have had a hat-trick.

The major talking point of the evening was an extraordinary non-goal from Yev with the score at around the 4-1 mark. The ball was dabbed through to him with just Liam between the Ukrainian hitman and yet another score – Yev shimmied, dummied, feinted and stabbed the ball goalwards, whereupon he turned his back to play and started walking back up the pitch for what he assumed would be the inevitable restart from the centre spot. He hadn’t banked, however, on a) the ball not travelling quite as quickly as he thought and b) the lithe athleticism of young Liam, who scampered back to stop the ball on the line. I could see it hadn’t crossed (to the disbelief of many others further away from play), something confirmed when the young ‘keeper swore on nothing less than his mother’s life that it was not a goal. Liam’s Mum was safe – the goal was not given. What was it they used to say about Scottish goalkeepers? Alan Rough, eat your heart out. Sadly for the Colours a suitably piqued Yev then went on to score another three or four goals. 

The last goal of the night was a header from Danny, whereupon Simon called an end to proceedings. 

And once more to the Skinners Arms, where the TV was showing another 8 goal drubbing as England smashed the mighty principality of San Marino. We now go into our Easter break; unbelievably, when we reconvene in two weeks it will be British Summer Time. Make sure you bring your sun cream...