Sicky bibs

Two new recruits this week from the rarefied world of high finance as Simon Gas corralled two young chaps – Peter and Joseph – into action, one on each side. This gave us a reasonably healthy sixteen or so, (pending the arrival of Yev). The Muswell Hill Footballing Head Honcho duly selected the following two teams:

Blues: Ian Baggies, Paul, Alan, Ross, Joseph, Bristol Paul, Daniel, Danny

Yellows: Alex, Nick, Ian Gooner, Simon Gas, Mark, Peter, me, Andy

With Yev’s arrival coming even later than usual after a lengthy phone call at the side of the pitch, these two teams did battle for around ten minutes before there was any change and during this time the Yellows took a two goal lead, through Nick and Alex, I think. Very Important Phone Call over, Yev duly joined the fray following a lengthy change in the goals and after some discussion Simon decided to switch me and Ross and add Yev to the Blues. Sadly for me this resulted in being reunited with a Blue bib which I had been asked to wear prior to kick off and which smelt distinctly of vomit, (evidently there’d been a laundry malfunction at Ross’s). 

Ergo, the teams then looked like this:

Blues: Ian Baggies, Paul, Alan, Joseph, Bristol Paul, Daniel, me, Yev

Yellows: Alex, Nick, Danny, Ian Gooner, Simon Gas, Mark, Peter, Ross, Andy

With the addition of the Yevgeny the Blues started to look a more potent goal threat and they did get back into the game as Daniel scored a real peach, wrapping his cultured right foot around the ball and curling the ball into the top right hand corner from around 20 yards. I think that Yev got the other Blue goal in considerably less glamourous circumstances. (I should be able to recall the goals a bit better, admittedly, but the chopping and changing would appear to have scrambled my memory).

With Alex, Nick and Peter pulling the strings in midfield for the Yellows it became more difficult for the Blues to attempt to get back on terms, although with Daniel, Alan and Yev they had enough to capitalise on some less than sure Yellows’ defending. Conversely, the Blues were well marshalled at the back by the impressive Joseph and the doughty Bristollian Paul, but having gone behind the Blues were always chasing the game. 

As the game became stretched the Yellows eased into a two and then three goal lead; Alex blasted one past me from close range and toward the end after Paul had relieved me in goalkeeping duties Yev unwittingly obscured his view by standing right in front of him and Alex poked home for what proved to be the winning goal. 

Final score: Yellows 5 : Blues 2

I swerved the pub this week as I had an early start on Saturday, although not as early as Ian Gooner, Alan and Steve, who were scheduled to join Simon Ink on an arduous sounding bike ride to Cambridge on Saturday morning. I expect we’ll hear all about their adventures next Friday. 

I’m off to Manchester for the big cup tie…