Memory loss

Welcome back, one and all, as football in all of its forms continues apace. Unbelievably, we’ve already had three games back in the new season and they’ve all been evenly contested games, which is better than having unevenly contested ones. Last Friday’s game may have been a bit low on quality, but it was a tight match in which the lead changed hands at least three times. Here are your two teams, with one side having ten and the other nine:

Yellows: Simon Ink, Mark, Simon, Danny, Yev, Peter, Patrick, Liam and Mario

Blues: me, Ian Gooner, Ian Baggies, Bristol Paul, Mick, Michele, Callum, Joe, Ross and Adolpho

A couple of late arrivals meant I spent the first five minutes (or so) on the Yellow side before Joe and Yev both arrived and the teams settled into the two line-ups provided above.

By the time I crossed the Rubicon (i.e. the half-way line) the Blues were already one up, although posterity cannot recall the scorer, (Posterity is clearly not the man he once was).

For some reason I am having enormous difficulty remembering any of the goals this week, but the story of the game is best characterised by a lot of huffing, puffing and misplaced passes. Both teams went a bit more direct than one would usually see, although props go to Patrick who endeavoured to jink and shimmy his way through, and Adolpho (who was erroneously referred to as ‘Alessandro’ throughout the game by team-mates and opponents alike) who demonstrated a passion for the beautiful game.

Perhaps more agriculturally, Peter managed to larrup the ball so hard that it cleared the crossbar, the fence and even the threshold to the Foundling Museum, where it presumably finally came to rest, disturbing the ghosts of eighteenth century urchins whose syphilitic mothers had perished in the shadow of the workhouse. Not to be outdone Patrick soon followed suit, and then Michele had a go at the clearing the admittedly lower fence at the other end. Not a match for the purist.

Whilst the specifics of the goals elude me, I can remember that having taken a one-nil lead, the Blue team increased their advantage to 3-1 before being pegged back first to three apiece, before the Blues took a 4-3 lead – I have a feeling that this score came from a corner that flew over a melee of heads and which Ian Baggies could only parry further into the goal. Given that Mario, Liam, Peter and Patrick were all wearing yellow bibs I think the Blues did well defensively to restrict the Yellow team to four goals, even with the extra man.

At the other end Ross did some sterling work in holding the ball up for Callum and Adolpho to run onto, with the former getting at least one goal and Michele also on the scoresheet.

Final score: Yellows 4 – Blues 4

That’s your lot this week; hopefully I’ll be in firmer mental shape after this week’s game.

Finally for this week, here is a photograph of a grown man I spotted on the train into work yesterday morning.