Hotpants

Afternoon, all. Another week, another match report.

Friday’s game took place in the immediate aftermath of a hail storm that I got caught right in the middle of - it felt like someone was sticking pins in my head as I trudged across Coram Fields to get changed. Inevitably, once I reached the sanctuary of changing room number four the skies cleared.

Happily, both the rain and the hail had completely abated before the start of play and Simon Gas selected the following teams:

Blue Bibs – Stefan, Alex, Tony, Chris, Ian Arsenal, Phil, me, Simon Gas

Yellow Bibs – Bearded Nick, Spizz, Liam, Steve, Danny, Bristol Paul, Mario and Yev (of whom much more later)

The first ten minutes or so were played with the team in Blue having a man advantage, Yev’s arrival delayed by either the necessity of working late or possibly having to advise Vladimir Putin on his next geopolitical strategic move.

In that time the Blues had taken a 2-1 lead, Alex and Phil being the marksmen, (Phil’s goal was from the tightest of angles). At this juncture in proceedings the Blues were well worth their lead, pinging the ball around in midfield and utilising the extra man by playing the ball out from the back and making the most of the dynamic midfield triumvirate of Alex, Stefan and Tony.

However, with around fifteen minutes gone a familiar looking figure arrived, besuited and beseeching Simon to be allowed to play. Simon Gas, parked in goal for most of the game, was sufficiently distracted by Yev’s arrival to handle a backpass and concede an indirect free-kick which, fortunately, was squandered by the Yellows.

If Simon was distracted by Yev’s initial appearance from behind the goal then his subsequent introduction was not so much a distraction, as a cause celebre. As the London sky darkened, a strange figure came hobbling across the pitches, clad in football boots, socks, shirt and a towel. On reaching our field of play, the towel was discarded to reveal the Ukrainian striker wearing a full football kit minus a pair of shorts with only some black underwear to protect his modesty. Basically, Yev was playing in hotpants.

Unsurprisingly, this semi-indecent get-up proved to be highly distracting for the Blues and although their lead held for around ten minutes, eventually the Yellows drew level and then took an unassailable lead. Almost all of the Yellows’ goals were slightly fortuitous – deflections that went in the net or wrong-footed the Blues’ defence all took their toll, while some individual errors were ruthlessly punished by Yev and Spizz. Chris and I combined for one wholly avoidable goal; Chris was bringing the ball out of defence and I was too busy trying to recover my breath from an earlier run upfield to properly get out of his way. Chris crashed the ball off my back where Yev gleefully pounced to smash the ball home. Similarly, Tony was caught playing out of defence and there was a quick exchange of passes to see the trouserless Yev score once more.

The Blue team put together plenty of chances of their own and continued to play well, but luck was not on their side as a shot from Stefan ricocheted off of Danny and went just wide of the post. Nick got the final goal of the evening, which came via yet another deflection.

Final score: Yellows 6, Blues 2

With Yev reacquainted with his trousers we headed off to the pub where, for the second week in a row, we nabbed a table from the off. The chief topic of conversation was Russia’s reacquisition of the Crimea – Yev provided us with a genuinely interesting insight, as he explained that the citizens of the Crimean peninsula had, in effect, doubled their money overnight be voting to join the Russian Federation, given the strength of the Russian economy to that of its neighbour to the west. I didn’t hear that on Newsnight.

I’m off to see a band this Friday, but presumably Paul can provide next week’s blog. Until then…