Kindergarten Klopp

And another welcome back to the Friday night football blog. And another match report for your perusal, following this week’s game.

In his regular Friday morning email Simon explained that we had sixteen players to choose from, but only sent me the names of fifteen people, which I found absolutely perplexing until Simon spotted that he’d put Patrick’s name down twice and omitted that of Ian Baggies. Further confusion came with the unexpected introduction of Mick and then, conversely, his son Patrick's late arrival (having been given a heavy pre-match billing). This required some on the fly re-arrangements, which I think it’s fair to say didn’t go too well.

After young Patrick’s arrival, here is what the two sides looked like:

Yellows: Simon Gas, Jaime, Mario, Dan, Danny, Peter, Paul Tanner, Ian Baggies and myself

Blues: Bristol Paul, Joseph, Alex, Patrick, Antonio, Liam, Tony and Mick

Let the record state that originally Tony was on the Yellow team and were it not for Simon’s dressing room intervention on the Yellow team he would have stayed. Let the record also state that Simon was concerned the Yellow team would be too strong (hence the switch) and, furthermore, let the record state that our attempt to rebalance the teams after the Blues went 2-1 up was very much with the original line-up in mind and not, as had been claimed, some attempt to engineer a Yellow victory. 

Onto the goals. The Yellows took the lead through Peter; at this stage in proceedings the Yellow / Orange team had a two man advantage owing to Patrick’s tardiness, but following his arrival the Blues had soon equalised and it became apparent that a team featuring the ball-winning skills of Alex and the “ridiculous feet” of Antonio would, to put it mildly, become rather a handful. Liam scored the second Blue goal and at this stage, fearing an avalanche, I did try to rejig the sides only to be rebuffed by Tony and Alex and to be accused of trying to gerrymander the result.

A third, fourth and fifth Blue goal soon followed – Antonio’s feet were a blizzard of movement and he steered in one, while the team revisions that never were resulted in the Yellow team losing shape with the consequence that some very soft goals were conceded in a five minute spell. I think that the Blues eased off at this point, either deliberately or subconsciously, and the Yellow team did back into the game, possibly as the Blues found it difficult to move back up the gears. Mario scored at least twice, both of the goals that I can recall being fierce efforts that fizzed low into the goal from wide on the right and then on another occasion from wide on the left (and some distance). I’d let in another soft goal from Tony by this point to give the Blues six goals, but a fourth goal for the Yellows proved to be the final score of the night, despite some late pressure from a midfield triumvirate of Jaime, Danny and Peter. 

Other notable incidents included a rare shot from distance from Simon Gas and a tough looking tackle from Ian Baggies on Liam that had everyone wincing. That lad’s ankles must look like a moon crater. On a more positive note, not so many balls kicked over the fence this week. 

Final score: Blues 6- Yellows 4

All in all, not exactly a classic and one perhaps best forgotten about. 

A reasonable turnout at the Skinners, with myself, Mick and Ian Baggies debating the cultural decay of working class life which has resulted in far fewer world class footballers from these islands, Wales excepted. Bristol Paul regaled us with a story about a catty remark his girlfriend received at a Hot Chip gig, while amongst the usual football chat (both at Coram Fields and beyond) came a comment from Tony. A man who often seems on the cusp of outrage, he opined that Arsène Wenger and Jurgen Klopp promote a style of play that he denigrated as “playground football”, which I thought was a characteristically obtuse viewpoint. It did, however, provide a splendid title for this week’s blog. 

Hopefully I’ll have a better match report to post next week.