Goodness Gracious Me

Last Friday saw the departure of our Dear Leader and redoubtable spiritual guide through the turbulence of Friday night football as he ascended to the skies bound for South America and the delights of Chile. In his stead was the dependable presence of Danny as bursar, key collector and all-round organiser -a Sergeant Wilson to Simon’s Captain Mainwaring, if you will.

Danny came up with the wizard idea of asking two people to act as captains and pick the teams, in the same way we used to do at school, but with the fairly hefty caveat that the selection would be in done in secret to avoid embarrassment. Ross and I duly went through the list of people scheduled to play and picked the following two teams. (I won’t give that much away except to say that Ross won the toss and went first, fatefully making Mario his first pick).

Yellows: me, Danny, Alan, Daniel, Phil, Simon Ink*, Bristol Paul*, Zack (I’ve checked with Alan and I believe I have remembered his name correctly) 

Blues: Ross, Mario, Carlo, Tony, Andy, Ian Baggies, Ian Gooner, Paul ‘The Guvnor’, Mark

Unfortunately, best laid plans and all that, neither Bristol Paul nor Simon Ink turned up. As this would have meant six versus nine, I took the decision to pick one more player from the ranks of the assembled Blues - I went for Carlo.

This meant that the two teams looked like this:

Yellows: me, Danny, Alan, Daniel, Phil, Carlo, Zack

Blues: Ross, Mario, Tony, Andy, Ian Baggies, Ian Gooner, Paul ‘The Guvnor’, Mark

The Blues still had the man advantage, but it looked a bit more even. This, in retrospect, is a controversial statement as it soon became clear from the cacophony of noise emanating from the Blues’ ranks that several people felt that the two sides were unevenly balanced; without dwelling too much on the aforementioned team selection Ross went for a Keeganesque approach with plenty of firepower (himself, Tony and Mario) while I went for a more cautious George Graham / Jose Mourinho strategy and as a result ended up with more defenders. Not that it felt like that at first, as Danny started in goal and on several occasions I found myself the only man back, gamely trying to get a foot in to prevent certain (and easy) goals. 

However, my late swoop for Carlo proved a shrewd move, as he was all over the scoresheet, ably assisted by Alan with a goal that was given the eyebrows by Phil (© Ron Atkinson) and nodded in by the genial Dubliner. The Yellows had eased into a three goal lead before Tony spanked one from around twenty yards out that I thought I’d tipped over the bar only to realise I was well off my line and that all I’d done was take the pace off the shot so that it plopped in under the bar. The Yellows immediately went up the other end and made it 4-1 and by this stage the complaining about the teams had reached fever pitch. 

Several offers to switch players were made – Mario offered to swap, presumably in a bid to get the Yellows a twenty-plus goal advantage – but while the arguments raged on, play eventually stopped after two more goals to the Yellows (making it 6-1) as tempers boiled over. Ross allegedly said something to Mario that he took exception to and we then had the extraordinary spectacle of Mario clawing Ross’s back and slapping him in the face. As people moved over to try and calm the situation it became evident that Mario was in no mood to be placated and he duly left the pitch and the game..

We jiggled the sides around – Carlo went from Yellow to Blue, as did, I think, Danny – and the second of the evening’s games finished with another tennis score - 6-2 - this time to the Blues.

At this stage, with the evening in serious danger of descending into farce, we had another radical overhaul of the two teams and the final game was something like 4-2 to the Yellows.

Carlo bagged around 75% of the evening’s goals, while Danny managed to finish on three winning teams, (no mean feat). Honourable mentions go to Ian Gooner, who snaffled a brace, one by spotting his namesake from the West Midlands slightly wrong-footed in goal and calmly passing it beyond him, and the second with a slightly effete flick that diverted the ball past the ‘keeper from all of around six yards out. Danny was also among the scorers, one coming from a typically powerful run down the right following a dinked pass from myself. And Phil did his usual sterling work of holding the ball up with his cultured left foot and feinting past the Blues’ defenders.

And so to the pub, where we were joined by a jovial Yev who was suitably agog at the news of the earlier contretemps. With Senor Gasolina away we awaited news of any possible disciplinary action and the evening’s conversation turned to other matters, such as Andy’s looming half century and details of an exclusive day out at Bramall Lane in the New Year. I left the Skinners just after half ten as Alan tried to persuade me and Ian that the solution to Arsenal’s travails in the transfer market would be to spend all the money we have and contravene UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules, which is nothing if not bold.

Here’s hoping for a more mundane match report this weekend. I’ll leave with you the above image of more an example of more convivial Anglo-Italian relations aswell as a link to the best World Cup song ever.