Can the Can

Compare and contrast - from last week’s game, where Simon Gas was forced to draft in some local lads to make the game up to more than five aside, Friday’s game had a veritable cast of thousands playing: with 9 (nine) players on each team the pitch looked like the set of Ben Hur. In fact, such were the numbers that Paul ‘The Guvnor’ selflessly substituted himself after the arrival of Yev for the first time this season (Yev being fashionably late, as ever).

I usually try to list the players on each team, but with eighteen players to get through that might be a bit dull; also, Alex brought in a few new faces and I’m not too sure what they were all called, (I know there was one chap called Tim but beyond that I haven’t got a Scooby).

With so many players and so many pairs of legs, the play at times resembled the legendary Folies Bergère doing the can can, with legs lifting and falling as the ball ricocheted between boots, ankles, shins (knees and toes, knees and toes) and probably squeaked for mercy. That said, the game itself wasn’t half bad and ended one apiece – Boro Dave opened the scoring for the team in colours when following some good work down the right he shot first time into a goal that was fairly unguarded as yours truly remained rooted to the near post. Clear chances being at a premium owing to the forest of defenders around either goal it looked like that could prove enough for some time, but Yev eventually poached a deserved equaliser for the team in bibs after a suicidal pass from Sam reached Yev on the edge of the D. Vulture-like, he rammed the ball home.

I think it’s fair to say that at the rattle for the end none of us felt like we’d played for more than 20 minutes, let along 40, but they say time flies when you’re having fun.

Finally, I can’t let the week’s blog pass without some mention of the weekend’s extraordinary Premier League action. Goals galore, red cards brandished, open goals missed – and Mario Balotelli setting fire to his own house. The Manchester derby score was arguably a worse result for Man U than the 8-2 caning they handed out to Arsenal, given that they were playing at home with their first choice 11 against the nearest rivals, but any thoughts of schadenfreude from me were tempered by the thought of what City might to do to Arsenal given that we lost to by six goals to a team that has now lost by five – by my reckoning Arsenal will lose 11-2 on the 18th December.