I did not play last week cos the nipper was down from uni.

I tried to get some reasonable conversation out of him but it was an uphill struggle. The previous week I spent most of a miserable time in goal where we got whacked 9-2 (I think). Yev and Alan Morg. cut us apart in defence, where since we did not track back we just did not have enough numbers. Big Dave was the incredible hulk/bulk in goal for them so for a long time we could not get on the score sheet. I thought Alex was bound to score one time but Big Dave pulled off a magnificent save. With Spizz being a long-term absentee and Mick K. resting, we did not have that cultured West Midlands play on the field. In addition, Gashead Simon was in Madrid on a stag-do, taking in the local derby. Amazingly Big Dave collected the money and we all paid up. I thought about asking for a discount since I spent so long in goal but I would have had to admit that being in goal was better than suffering triangular passing. I expect Gooner Simon will come up with his particular take on the game filling the blog with saucy pictures as well as giving a report on the post mortem in the pub. I think I am going to miss the next few Fridays so my limited fitness will go for a burton but at least I won't be in goal!!!

Two left feet

Last Friday’s game saw Simon Gashead take a week’s sabbatical from the action, in part because he’d managed to bring two left boots to the game. Insert your own joke here.

With Simon suited and watching from the sidelines, there ensued a lively eight-a-side which finished 5-2 to the team in colours. The team in bibs comprised Boro Dave, Ross, Joe, and Keir (so no shortage of fire power), as well as myself, Danny, Ian West Brom and Simon the Drummer up against Yev, Sam, Dave A, Mick, Alex, Andy, Paul and Ian Gooner.

The team in colours raced into a two goal lead after goals from Sam and Yev, the first of which I should have saved, with the second being a fierce effort from the Ukrainian which flew into the top right hand corner. When the team in colours scored a third, again through Sam, it looked like turning into a rout but the side wearing bibs managed to get a couple of goals back through Boro Dave (a tidy finish) and the goal of the game from Keir – a trademark finish into the roof of the net from an acute and unlikely angle - before weary legs and wayward finishing allowed the bibs to extend their lead into an unassailable 5-2 advantage, with Yev eventually ending the match with a brace.

The general consensus seemed to be that the teams were reasonably fair, but perhaps not as much as has been the case in recent weeks. On reflection, the team in colours maybe had a bit too much in midfield, but there was plenty of action in and around the bibs’ penalty area. No matter.

Not too much to report in the pub this week, certainly not in the first hour and a half anyway. It would appear Jim’s recruitment and selection policy as it relates to employing barmaids hasn’t changed in 2011. Amen to that.

Taking the Mick

Now then. There is a player amongst us called Mick Kavanagh. A very fine player, I’m sure we’ll all agree – great range of passing, tough tackling, box-to-box and possessed of a thunderous shot. It would appear I have been hiding Mick’s light under a Gary Bushell of late, with little mention of his goal scoring feats. No longer.

First of all, I erroneously omitted Mick from last week’s scoresheet. Mea culpa. Secondly, I am beginning this match report not by telling you the teams, or the final score, or even who scored the first goal, but who scored the crucial third. It was Mick. This goal was of such crucial importance it made Simon Gashead try and change the teams, such was the apparent dominance the side in which Mick (naturally) appeared. For the record, the goal itself was a rasping effort drilled hard and low into the bottom right hand corner after some pleasing interplay on the right between the Brummie banjo player and Alex from Stoke. As everyone ran back for the restart, Mr Kavanagh leaned in to my ear and uttered, sotto voce, ‘Put that in your blog’. And here it is.

By this stage Alex had already scored twice, both fine finishes after some good running through midfield, but Mick’s goal, or more probably Simon’s offer to reshape the sides, had a galvanising effect on the team in colours and they promptly pulled two back, both through Simon the Drummer, if memory serves. At that stage it looked as if we could be in for a comeback of Newcastle proportions, but a cataclysmic mix-up in the coloured team’s defence lead to someone (Alex?) having an open goal to roll the ball into. There was time for one more goal from the side in colours to leave a final score of 4-3.

The other major talking point was the gradual re-emergence of both Simon Gashead and Dave A from goal, like two shaggy behemoths emerging after a Winter spent in hibernation. Ian Gooner, somewhat unkindly, blamed Simon’s vacating of the penalty area on the team in bibs sudden shipping of two goals, although Simon was soon settled into his familiar left back berth. Dave A was uncharacteristically shot-shy, although the one effort I can recall cannoned into my midriff.

And so to the pub, although not for me as I endeavoured to shake off this infernal head cold which has been filling my sinuses for the past fortnight. Until Friday, I leave you with a tribute to Mick (see above), who has a certain familiar look to him.

The phantom hatchet man of Old Street

Last Friday night’s action saw 8 play 7, with Geoff given the role of super sub, should it be required. Lining up for the team in bibs was Simon Gashead, still nursing a nasty bump on the ankle and therefore staying in goal, Steve A, Joe, my good self, Boro Dave, Ross and Ian West Brom. Up against them were Dave A, also still keeping goal due to injury, Paul, Yev, young Sam, Danny, Andy, Mick and Simon the Drummer.

It was a game with a number of interruptions; Yev left the field within the first five minutes to drop the kids off at the pool and Simon the Drummer blasted the white ball out of the ground and onto the roof of the portacabin directly behind the goal. But the most notable interruption was when Steve A injured his ankle after taking a trademark tilt at goal from near the halfway line. With no one within five yards of him he went down like a wounded moose, (making a similar noise). Following Simon Gashead’s mysterious ankle injury and my similarly bizarre toe knack it would appear that a malevolent spirit is haunting the five a side field, taking one of us out each week. What could be the cause of this footballing poltergeist? Is there some sort of jinn out to crock us all?

Whatever the truth, and it is out there, Steve’s injury ushered in the introduction of the mercurial Geoff. Except it didn’t, at least not for a couple of minutes, as in typically enigmatic fashion he vanished from view only to reappear just as suddenly. By this stage of the game the team in colours were two goals up, although I cannot quite recall the two scorers – I believe they were young Sam and Yev, who having lost a few pounds in the disabled toilet had something of a spring in his step.

Despite both sets of posts coming in for a real pounding the score remained 2-0, with Dave A in particular proving incredibly difficult to beat. One suggestion from Mick is that he plays in a kilt next week to even things up.

An extraordinarily busy night at the Old Fountain’s Head, to the extent that we spent around 30 minutes drinking outside – in February. An early night for all, bar Ross who was off to somewhere suitably rock ‘n roll in Bethnal Green. Get well soon, Steve.