The Goalkeeper Who Never Was

The much vaunted – and now publically available, to Alan at least – Jarvis Algorithm for team selection took a break this week, as Simon Gas picked the sides owing to me being away from a computer all day. 

Here’s what the main man came up with:

Blues: Simon Gas, Peter, Michele, Danny, Andy, Ed (NB: not in goal this week), Mark, Tony, Paul, me

Yellows: Steve, Alex, Joseph, Geoff, Simon Ink, Ross, Ian Baggies, Mick, Antonio

The game got off to a roaring, effervescent start which never waned until the final whistle. Michele had two good chances to put the Blues ahead after being put through one-on-one via passes from yours truly, but on both occasions was unable to find a way past Simon Ink in goal. Alex was the first goal-scorer, for the Yellows, with a typically surging run through the midfield capped by a fine goal, the Potteries Dynamo passing the ball calmly into the bottom right hand corner. 

In what was always a fiercely competitive game, clear-cut changes were relatively few and far between, but the Yellows made the best of them, with Simon Ink bagging a rare brace with two poacher’s finishes from close range. I believe both came from kerfuffles at corners. The Yellows’ midfield proved decisive on the night, with Alex back to his very best form and Antonio having one of those evenings where it proves virtually impossible to dispossess him – time and again he chested down balls which fell like stones from the sky and effortlessly pinged them on to either Alex or Joseph in midfield or onto Ross. 

With Steve agriculturally clearing anything which hove into view and the Blues getting bogged down trying to regain possession, Michele was ploughing something of a lonely furrow up front, but he had a splendid game nevertheless. The Blues were able to get on the scoresheet – Mark scored what was arguably the goal of the game with a left footed finish that he steered into the corner from just outside the area. And Ed, making a rare appearance outfield owing to a bashed thumb, also scored a good goal, swivelling and volleying into the top corner from a similar distance to Mark’s earlier effort.

With the game poised at 3-2 to the Yellows came the major talking point of the game. The Blues won a corner and in the ensuing melee Geoff ‘saved’ a goal-bound effort. Apparently he had swapped ‘keeping responsibilities with Antonio between the corner being awarded and taken, but it all seemed a bit of a rum do and after the game in a fit of conscience Geoff admitted it should have been a penalty kick. 

Clearly, Geoff’s stop-start acting career has taken on a new lease of life, with the Finchley Aesthete playing the role of his life – The Goalkeeper Who Never Was. Stanislavski would be proud.

With the Blues unable to get an equaliser we finished at 3-2 to the Yellows, but all things considered it was a highly debatable final score. Just a quick word for Tony this week, who I thought put in an excellent shift in goal and more generally at the defence for the Blues.

To the pub! Not a high turnout this week, but we did have enough people present to debate a) an Ugly Current World Football XI, (hello Frank Ribery!), b) the moribund state of guitar music, never better illustrated than with the fact that the guitarist in The Maccabees augments his income by delivering guitar lessons Tony’s son and c) the relative merits (or not) of Shane Meadows, Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers. The evening left with North London’s leading thespian epically procrastinating ahead of an abortive attempt to attend a leaving do that he didn’t want to go to. Presumably he went away to ponder his motivation.