Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Bib-bib, n’ bib-bib, yeah!

Greetings, Spizzenergi football blog readers. Another good workout this week, with the numbers of players just about stretching to seven aside, meaning there was lots of running, huffing and puffing. Simon Gas’s two teams, sans bibs, (the north London auteur Tony being the culprit who forgot to bring them), were as follows:

‘Darks’ (red, black, navy): me, Ian Arsenal, Chris, Tony, Dave, Phil, Will

‘Lights’ (white, light blue, yellow): Spizz, Mick, Liam, Simon Gas, Mario, Paul, Danny

And so we began, with both teams wearing a mixture of kit that broadly fell into either the categories ‘light’ or ‘dark’. There was some early confusion with Simon Gas wearing a dark blue t-shirt that had to be swapped with Phil via Danny, which saw the Bristol Rovers supremo playing in a fetching white vest that was reminiscent of a) a primary school PE lesson or b) a scene from a Louisiana strip joint (you choose).

It may have been a consequence of the confusion over colour, but there was a testy exchange between Mick and post punk legend Spizz, the gist of which was that Mick felt that Spizz was up front hogging the limelight while his team-mates were left doing too much of the legwork. Sport imitating art imitating life, no doubt.

Partly aided and abetted by the general confusion over team strips, the Lights roared into a three goal lead courtesy of goals from the aforementioned Spizz, who spotted Dave slightly wrong-footed on his line and then Mario, to whom I am almost obliged to add the prefix ‘Super’ and finally Danny. Mario’s goal in particular was an excellent shot; the barrel chested newcomer opened his body and sent the ball wide outside the ‘keeper (me in this instance) before it bent back into the far post.

At this point the Darks’ eyes adjusted to the early Spring gloom and they began to get themselves organised. I was being directed, nay commanded, around by (who else?) Tony, but the combination of West Ham Chris, another newcomer, at left half and Tony in midfield began to pay dividends as we got danger man Will increasingly into the game.

With Will and Phil getting in amongst the goals, the deficit began to reduce, although a slightly flukey goal from Spizz that went in off a defender’s heel proved, ultimately, to be the winner. There was just the one goal in it by the end, as Ian collected the ball from a distance of all of three yards, gave Simon Gas the eyes and pushed it inside the near post for the final goal of the night.

Final score: Darks 5 Lights 6

Hopefully we’ll have the Bibs back next week, as well as some more players.

And so once more to the pub. A rare treat this week, as we managed to grab a table and chairs from the off, leaving no man splintered off from the main group. The most memorable conversation revolved around the somewhat unlikely topic of climbing mountains; Danny regaled us with a tale involving his wife and the folly of climbing the Old Man of Conniston in jeans and t-shirts without any supplies or equipment and hailing some truculent mountaineers for help; Mick and Ian both had similar stories of unforgiving hillocks and woefully under-prepared outdoors enthusiasts.

When was the last time you heard words like ‘tarn’, ‘corrie’ and ‘scree’? GCSE Geography? Not in a west end boozer, I’d wager.

Yours geographically….

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