Of (false) nines, Prosecco and Sebastian

Greetings, Spizzenergi blog readers.

Many apologies for the hiatus in match reports, but to make up for last week’s radio silence I am posting a bumper edition of the best blog about middle aged men playing football on a Friday night in central London found anywhere on the internet. (Incidentally, note that I used the term ‘central London’ there – not “central”, which the Young People are now deploying not as an adjective, but as a noun to denote what I would call the ‘West End’. As in, “’where shall we meet Barnaby this weekend, Josh?’ ‘Dunno, I think Jocasta is going central, so we could head there’”. ‘Central’ is meaningless – central where? Central London? Central Croydon? The Central Line? I’m not saying people should say they are going “up West” as if they live in Walford, but using an adjective to describe somewhere with plenty of serviceable place names (e.g. Soho, Holborn, Fitzrovia) is tantamount to semantic terrorism. Here endeth the lesson). 

First we have a match report from Friday 17^th January, with apologies for the inevitable vagueness which comes with trying to recall a game from longer than one week ago. However, I did make a few notes last week which I am hoping will lend some semblance of accuracy to the report.

First of all, the two teams:

Yellows – me, Ian Gooner, Mick, Alex, Danny, Simon Ink, Halid, (and Paul, following Yev’s arrival)

Blues – Yev, (eventually), Steve, Andy, Simon Gas, Mark, Liam, Beardy Nick, Paul

I can remember lobbing a ball up and over the Blues’ defence for Simon Ink, playing in the False Nine position, to chase onto but I don’t think that particular attack yielded any goals. Simon Ink generally held up play well, even if he didn’t get more than one goal, but the Yellows won the game chiefly as a consequence of Alex and Mick bossing things in midfield, aided by Alex’s fellow Stokie Halid (sp.?) at right back. The two aforementioned maestros combined well for one goal – I took a quick throw-in following a trademark, lung-bursting, box-to-box run from Danny and Mick chested the ball down for Alex to power past the keeper. Ian Gooner also marked his landmark birthday (more of which later) with a decent finish from a tight angle.

At this stage the Yellows were comfortably ahead, before Yev arrived and prompted a late rally for the Blues, with Steve doing some poaching for at least one goal. I am not sure that Yev actually scored himself, but his appearance did bring some respectability to the final score which was 8-4 to the Yellows.

I’m acutely conscious that I have only described three of the twelve goals there, so many apologies to anyone who had a thirty yard scorcher omitted from the report – I love you all.

Where else to begin with the post-game pub round-up than the glorious spectacle of middle aged men sipping flutes of Prosecco in the Skinners Arms? Many thanks to Ian for his generosity and many happy returns for 50 glorious years – here’s to at least another 50. Ian’s birthday celebrations somewhat overshadowed anything else that evening, but for those of you who didn’t see it, here is a genuine jobapplication I brought along to the pub for the general enjoyment of anyone whoread it.

 

And so on to last Friday, the 24^th January. Such were the myriad changes throughout the game that I’ve listed two line-ups: one as of 7.00 pm and one at the final whistle.

Teams at the start of the game –

Blue Bibs: me, Alex, Alan, Seb, Simon Gas, Phil, Dave, Geoff

Yellow Bibs: Steve, Beardy Nick, Andy, West Brom Ian, Dave, Danny, Paul, Will, Spizz,

Teams at the end of the game –

Blue Bibs: me, Alex, Alan, Simon Gas, Phil, Dave, Geoff, Spizz

Yellow Bibs: Steve, Beardy Nick, Andy, West Brom Ian, Dave, Danny, Paul, Will, Seb

Last Friday’s match was graced by the presence of a Teutonic gentleman named Sebastian, or ‘Seb’ in the player’s argot, who is some sort of colleague of Andy’s. Apparently Seb’s brother has played in the Bundesliga and the family talent for fussball was immediately apparent as he, along with the Potteries dynamo Alex, were chiefly responsible for the Blue team roaring into a five goal lead.

Alex’s name troubled the scoresheet on at least one occasion, but the most memorable effort was the Blues’ third goal; a long clearance upfield was flicked off Phil’s head and the dashing German controlled the ball on his chest and took it past Geoff in goal before swivelling and volleying from an acute angle in all one movement.

After the fifth Blues goal Simon Gas decided to share Seb’s skillset and moved him onto the Yellow team. That they then rattled in 4 goals in just over five minutes – Will and, yes, Seb, doing most of the damage - is not merely testament to Seb’s prowess, but also the inability of the Yellow team to count properly, as Simon had unwittingly given the Blues a two man advantage. Nick was the man with the requisite number of fingers to count up the numerical disparity between the two sides.

The Blues were duly augmented with punk legend Spizz and with another outlet up front the Blues managed to regain both their shape and composure and saw out the remainder of the game without conceding again. There were a couple of extraordinary misses by the Blue team – one from Dave, who contrived to put the ball the wrong side of the post from a distance of about ten inches, and a similarly wasteful effort from Geoff, although he later claimed that he missed on purpose having been the perpetrator of some ungentlemanly conduct. I’ll let you be the judge, dear reader.

I scored what you might call a rare headed goal with the last touch of the game to make the final score 7-4 to the Blues. Alan floated in a perfect corner which glanced off the side of my head and past Andy in goal, although I should mention that Spizz cheerfully boasted that he’d nobbled the ‘keeper. Given Andy is about a foot taller than Spizz, I’m saying the goal was good.

And so onto the Skinners Arms. No bottles of Prosecco this week, but a decent turn out, including Seb and his lady friend, who as I left the pub just after ten was party to some outrageous flirting from Spizz, who seemed to have his entire showbiz career stored on his iPhone for the Fraulein’s delectation.  

There’ll be another break before I’m back on blogging duty, as it’s my wife’s 30^th birthday this Friday. Until then.

New year, new rules

With the mid-season break behind us na-na-na-nineteen men reported for duty last Friday, each no doubt eager to put the corpulence of the past few weeks behind them. Among the returnees was Alex, hamstring now back in place, and Danny, who revealed that he’d been tucking into cinnamon flavoured Pringles over the festive period. Have you ever heard the like?

With so many chaps playing it’s been a bit of an effort to recall everyone, but I think I’ve got all the players, although it took me a while to recall that Goalkeeping Phil, the specialist, was with us.  The two teams were as follows -

Yellow team: Simon Gas, Alan, Ian Arsenal, Liam, Phil, me, Danny, Alex, Andy

Blue team: Yev, Mick, Ian West Brom, Steve, Bearded Nick (who’s outed himself as a Tottenham fan), Dave, Spizz, Mark, Simon Ink and Goalkeeping Phil

Despite the mid-Winter hiatus all nineteen players seemed in reasonably fine fettle and no-one’s touch seemed to have completely deserted them. Perhaps playing virtually ten aside helped people preserve energy and (ergo) accuracy with their passing, but the game remained competitive without ever really becoming stretched.

The Blue Bibs took the lead from a speculative effort from Yev that was more akin to wedge shot from a bunker than either a cross or an attempt on goal – his lob came falling out of the night sky, over Andy’s head and into the back of the net.

Alan equalised soon after, taking advantage of some defensive dithering to pass the ball past Goalkeeping Phil to level things up. I believe that Phil (the non-goalkeeping kind) then made it 2-1 to the Yellows following some nice interplay with Alan before the Blues got back on terms following a semi-own goal that pinged off the side of Andy’s head and wrong-footed me in goal.

The Yellows then retook the lead, again through Phil, and the final whistle went. 3-2 to the Yellows.

But wait! What’s that plaintive wailing from the Blues? ‘It might not be eight ‘o’ clock yet’… ‘Come on, we all need the exercise’…’It’s not as if anyone else is coming on after us’…

I was always taught to play to the whistle, but inexplicably this rule was thrown out of the window last week as a cacophony of plangent lowing from the Blues resulted in us agreeing to Keep Playing Football for an indeterminate period of time (or until the Blues scored some more goals, whichever came first).

However, the Blues were thwarted when Liam burst up field with a typically mazy run for the Yellows, and was about to ‘round’ Goalkeeping Phil when the specialist netminder brought him down outside the area.

If playing on after the final whistle wasn’t sufficiently disrespectful to the laws of the beautiful game, the Blues played on following this heinous foul – it was either a free kick or a penalty, as Phil had come outside the area - until my fellow Gooner Ian and I protested loudly enough for play to stop for the award of a free-kick from the spot were young Liam was felled.

From the resulting free kick the ball went out for a corner, (Ian Baggies with the clearance) but Alex scored from the rebound so that the West Brom man’s efforts were in vain.

Final score: 4-2 to the Yellows (aet)

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Other notable incidents include Spizz’s 50:50 challenge with Alex, which ended up with the ageing rocker laying winded on the touchline, Dave hitting the crossbar and the sight of Simon Gas gathering up all the bibs in his bag and then putting them back down again as we agreed to play on.

And so to the Skinners for the first time in 2014, where happily all the Christmas drinkers (Amateurs!) had cleared off. Good to see that no-one is bothering with this dry January nonsense… if you’re going to give up booze for 30 days for God’s sake don’t do it in January, the most miserable month of the entire year.

  a note from the Guv'nor "I was rotated Gashead otherwise I would have come to make the numbers up to twenty. I certainly needed the exercise especially after all the mince pies at Christmas, (there is a specialist bakery in Chase Side near us). Also I think I might need counselling for my pork pie addiction. Especially due to the health issues of certain meat products.

Until next time.