Divide and rule

Friday night football action at Coram Fields returned after a two week hiatus to mark the ancient springtime festival of egg hunting and chocolate scoffing, along with both daylight and warmth, as we played for the first time this term in British Summer Time temperatures that were nudging the balmy heights of twenty degrees.

Simon Gas’s bid to delegate the not inconsiderable responsibilities associated with organising a game of football every Friday continued with my good self being pegged for team picking duties once again. Here’s what I came up with:

Citrus bibs: James, Charlie (another Morgan Stanley recruit), Simon Gas, Patrick, Nick, Will, Mario, me

Blue bibs: Dan, Liam, Tony, Peter, Joseph, Bristol Paul, Paul Guvnor, Mark, Mick (eventually)

My overriding strategy would have been recognisable to a Stalinist at the height of the 1930’s purges – divide family and friends. As such, the Genoese duo of Mario and Dan were on opposite sides, as were the Kavanaghs. This proved less straightforward than first appeared, as Kavanagh Junior arrived around fifteen to twenty minutes before his old man, who was having a high powered editorial meeting at an august financial gazette. 

This meant that for the majority of the game we were balanced at eight aside, but it is probably fair to say that the Oranges and Lemons seemed to have the lion’s share of the ball. Mario and Peter were principle among the goal scorers for the team in Citrus bibs, although Nick did score an absolute peach, the second Citrus goal I think, which left the outside of his right foot and nestled dreamily into the top right corner. 

At the other end the team in Blue bibs sought to take advantage of the high line that the Yellows were holding, along with some shonky defending, (mainly from me). Liam, nice and relaxed following a couple of pre-match ales, was the vulture-in-chief as he sought to pounce on anything loose around the Yellows’ penalty area, but on several occasions some last second interceptions and saves from the keeper and on one occasion a goal-line clearance from James thwarted the jinky Scotsman’s efforts. 

With Tony becoming increasingly vocal in his consternation about the perceived imbalances on the field Mick eventually rocked up at what my grandparents would have called ‘five and twenty to eight’. The fact he then took a few minutes to insert his contact lenses and threatened to walk if we swapped him with his son (a fit of pique that it would be remiss of me not to refer to as ‘a paddy’) was the source of some discussion on the pub afterwards, but without wishing to get ahead of myself there was still around twenty minutes left to play.

Playing with the extra man the Blues duly came back into things, with Mick operating on the left and Dan and Peter vying with the excellent Will and Patrick in the middle of the park. That the Oranges and Lemons eventually won the game was largely a consequence of some decent shooting from distance from Mario and Peter, as the Blues were fairly solid at the back with Bristol Paul and Joseph proving difficult to get past. In contrast, the team in Citrus were somewhat more gung-ho, with Simon Gas being the sole locus of defensive nous, as he put in an imperious performance first in goal and then at left back.

Among the other talking points was the fact that no fewer than four balls careered over the fences marking either end of the pitch, Mario losing one ball at the north end, while three separate footballs flew over the fence at the park end, although two of them were a result of saves being tipped over the bar (and then over the fence). Tony also shouted for a number of handballs, one of which was against Will in the area as he chested down a ball as he faced his own goal, but nothing was doing and the strangled exhortations from the Hampstead auteur were, truth be told, speculative at best.

Liam and Peter Murdoch grabbed two late goals to make the final score something in the region of 11-5 to the Yellows / Oranges / Citrus / Lemons. Apologies if your goal didn’t get a mention, but there were an awful lot to get through.

And so to the pub, where we dined al fresco for the first time in 2015, (well, I did anyway – a lovely chargrilled burger to accompany my delicious Cornish beer) and conversation hopped around Mick’s reasons for being late and assorted issues, including Bristol Rovers’ promotion prospects and the growing coterie of Simon’s younger colleagues.

I’ll be seeing you…