In the wolf's mouth

Welcome, one and all, to what is becoming an occasional look at events from Coram Fields on a Friday night. This is the first post of the new season and we’re well into October, so I trust that everyone had a great Summer, heatwave and World Cup fever now being a distant memory.

I’ve only played two of the five games of the new season, but felt moved to write following the departure of a genuine Coram Fields legend, albeit a very unassuming one - Michele. A box-to-box tour de force, not afraid to get stuck in, although with the steel comes a silky élan and a keen eye for goal. If I was being reductive I’d say that this mixture of gritty determination and ball-playing panache reflects his mixed Irish and Italian heritage, but it probably isn’t so I won’t. Despite the fact some of our number have never quite the hang of his name (hint: not Michaela), he’ll live long in the memory and hopefully he’ll join the pantheon of former players occasionally stopping by to roll back the years and join us on-stage for the odd encore.

I learnt something new courtesy of Adolfo’s valedictory message to Michele: “in bocca al lupo per lupo” got my interest pricked as I know that ‘bocca’ means mouth in Romance languages and lupo must be something to do with wolves. And so it turns out – this Italian phrase translates as something like ‘break a leg’, but literally means “in the wolf’s mouth”. Fancy that.

This greeting was delivered via the most notable development at Friday night football since the change to the overhead rule – the new WhatsApp group. Our dear leader has not so much embraced the twenty-first century as given it a cursory nod and a crisp handshake and created a new forum in which Ian can post vaguely not suitable for work images and for people to mute notifications for eight hours every Monday morning after they’ve confirmed their participation for the following week’s game.

Right, that’s more than 300 words without any mention of football.

I still have the teams for the second week of the new campaign, which are scribbled onto a piece of paper, Neville Chamberlain style. Here you go:

Yellows: Liam, Steve, Stu (congratulations), Bert, Joe, Peter, James, Mark and Ian Baggies

Blues: Yev (late), Danny, Shez, Simon Gas, Patrick, Michele, Josh, Bristol Paul, me

Lord knows what happened that night, but I think it was a fairly decent game, despite the odd late arrival. I have a memory of Patrick running amok and possibly setting up the much-lamented Michele, but really, it’s a bit of a blur.

I’ve mislaid the team news from the following week’s game, but the entire game descended into farce as a couple of players arrived late and there was a definite perception that one team was stronger than the other, with the effect that one team did indeed become stronger than the other and rather ran away with things, even though it was an evenly fought contest for the opening twenty minutes or so. Tony, I think it’s fair to say, was distinctly unimpressed.

I haven’t been around for the past fortnight, so I can only hope that you’ve been able to enjoy two more keenly contested games in that time and without all the hullabaloo.

See you Friday and cheerio Michele.