Retrospective myopia

Good day, compadres. Another exciting game to report on this week, with eight goals to try and recall. Simon Gas obviously had a memorable time in Las Vegas as he not only told me that were two Liams playing – there’s only one Liam (as they often sing in Scotland) – but he completely forgot to mention that Ross was in the starting line-ups. Along with a brace of Marios (a volley of Marios?) and some late call-ups for both the mercurial Geoff and Peter’s mate Josh, we ended up with two teams of ten, which given the oppressive heat and miasmic tree pollen was probably not such a bad thing.

Your two teams look this - 

Yellows: me, Ian Baggies, Andy, Steve, James, Joe, Danny, Antonio, Liam, Josh

Blues: Michele, David, Simon Gas, Charlie, Peter, Ross, Mick, Geoff, Mario and Mario (Antonio’s mate)

By common consent, a decently contested game this. Star of the show, at least from a goal-scoring perspective, was Antonio’s pal Mario, who unleashed a number of fearsome shots, virtually all of which found the back of the net through a combination of calm placement and pace that can best be labelled as extremely violent.

So while he did not necessarily demonstrate the panache or delicacy of touch of his good friend and compatriot, he did share something with his Italian namesake in that he wasn’t shy about shooting. I think Danny was in goal for his first effort, which flew into the bottom corner, while Andy had the unenviable task of trying to get anything on the other two goals.

At the other end Liam was on form and grabbed the opener for the Yellows, who I thought put in a sterling performance and were ultimately disappointed to yield a 3-2 and 4-3 lead to draw the match. Josh, one of Peter’s friends, had a tremendous game, cutting in time and again from the left wing to trade passes with Liam, James and Danny; he also cut something of a dash in tight short-shorts, which were more akin to something you’d see on Copa Cabana beach that Coram Fields. Did he score? Quite possibly.

The Blues managed to grab a couple of time-outs in play through the somewhat agricultural method of shanking the ball high, wide and handsome (Come back, Peter! Fly away, Ball!), meaning that we had two breaks in play where all three match balls were bobbling innocently around the children’s play area having been sliced horribly high. Thankfully, the change in the seasons lent daylight to the search for said spheres.

In terms of other goals, Ross managed to arrive in the right place at the right time and nudge the ball home from all of about six inches, but as the legendary Jimmy Sirrel might have said, ‘If you dinnae buy a ticket, you willnae win a raffle’. Ross’s goal was sandwiched between Mario’s second and third goals, and Mario’s final shot, which came after I lacked the pace to match his run, ended the scoring. Apologies to my team-mates for not being able to recall more about the Yellows’ goals, but on the day that Arsene Wenger announced that he was leaving Arsenal at the end of the season I can think of no more appropriate tribute but to write that I could not see who scored.

Final score: Yellows 4 – Blues 4

And onto the pub, for a beautifully cool evening spent outdoors drinking cold beer. Lovely. After Ian Baggies and I discussed West Brom’s chances in next season’s Championship we shared some play-off chat with Mick and others, before Mick, David and I had a Late Show­ style discussion about the role of women in Britpop and the lost world of record company largesse and the not-so-lost world of record industry exploitation.

Until Friday!