From the Banks of the Jordan

After a two week gap caused by a malarial-like bout of ‘flu, the blog returns with details of last Friday’s game and attendant post-match discussion in the Skinners.

Here are the line-ups, with hearty welcome backs for two prodigal Pauls: one, Tanner of the Antarctic, who has been Gone for Some Time and two, Bristol Paul, who returns after a vicious row with a push-bike. The latter seems no worse for his medical sojourn and like his fellow Gashead Simon was positively giddy at the prospect of Bristol Rovers being taken over by a delegation from Jordan. What could possibly go wrong?

Blues:  Ian Gooner, Joseph, Nick, Mick, Bristol Paul, Alan, Tony and Mario

Yellows: Me, Paul ‘Captain’ Oates, David, Michele, Simon Gas, Danny, Patrick and Alex

And so the game started. The Blues took the lead through someone or other*, before the Yellows equalised via a man and at this stage of the match things were relatively equal. However, after I took my turn in goal from David things rather fell apart at the back for the Yellows in a calamitous five or ten minutes period which cost the Yellows three goals. David and I performed a well-worn Chuckle Brothers routine which somehow saw the ball squirt free for Ian to tap over the line, while Mario twice profited from slack marking to smash home from the edge of the area. As the level of discontent from within the Yellows ranks (understandably) grew they managed to find some momentum from somewhere to take advantage of young Patrick’s pace and height and the young man - making his final appearance as a teenager - scored twice to bring some respectability to the final score.

However, this was not before Joe had capitalised on the Yellows pushing forward to get back into the game by dispossessing Michele and picking out Tony (or Mario) to fire past Simon Gas. As for other goalscorers, while Ian got one he could and should have had a brace having been put through late on, but overthought his finish and managed to tackle himself with only Simon Gas to beat.

We once more played on for a few minutes after the final whistle, but there were no more goals and were unceremoniously hoicked off at around five past eight.

Final score: Blues 5 – Yellows 3

And so to the pub, where we managed to get a suite of seats for once. I spent some time talking to Mick about the passage of time on both mind and body and listened with great interest to Paul’s Antarctic expedition and how he’d narrowly avoided an international incident by trying to make friends with some Americans. He did, however, make friends with a West Ham fan known simply as ‘The Plumber’, as well as with some penguins.

Elsewhere, Simon Gas explained how he’d bailed out on War and Peace at around 550 pages, well before the Battle of Borodino, while Alan spent the latter part of the night relaying how much he hates Arsenal and Ian and I strived for new ways to distance ourselves from any putative Arsenal-to-win-the-league campaign. So, business very much as usual then.

*Credit to neither Alan nor David for helping me not remember more about the goalscorers.