Homo Trampus

A bumper turn out at Coram Fields this week (and a bumper blog, to boot).

The West Country CEO (I’m trying to come with a unique description of Señor Gas each week without using his first name) toyed and tinkered with his Chamberlainesque Piece of Paper and eventually came up with this set of teams:

Yellows: Andy, Tony, Simon Gas, me, Dave, Mario, Liam, Bristol Paul, Steve

Blues: Daniel, Alex, Yev, Mark, Ian Gooner, Alan, Simon Ink, Nick, Khalid

Nine aside, no-one late, even Stevens, game on.

Initial concerns that the Blues were too strong soon dissipated as despite having a highly potent forward line, the Yellows were well organised and retained their shape even when they struggled to retain the ball, with crowds of players gathering behind Alex and Yev in particular. 

The Yellows played Liam up front on his own and he led the line admirably, holding the ball up and bringing other people into play, chiefly Mario. The dynamic Genoese plundered no fewer than five goals, none of which were from less than around fifteen feet away from goal – one came through a thicket of legs and into the bottom right hand corner, another was lashed in from wide on the right, yet another came from a lateral pass from me which was stunned first time and slammed in the corner from distance. Also on the scoresheet were the tireless Liam and Dave, who managed to get two goals: one after a dainty run down the right hand side came from a fierce shot and the second, which was the final goal of the game, came from a distance of about an inch after Liam had headed one of my crosses onto the woodwork and then pinged the rebound onto the opposite post. 

As for the Blues, they did score a number of times – I believe that Alex scored two (he definitely got one I was in goal at the time) and Daniel may well have grabbed another. But, as alluded to earlier, some tenacious defending and some military-style barked instructions from Simon, Andy and in particular Tony (who is almost back to full strength) meant that the Blues never really made the most of their forward play.

Inevitably, frustration started to grow, as first one and then two balls careered over the fence. Sadly, the park at the end of the pitches was closed, so there was no-one to chuck the ball back over – as I said to Mark, where are all the cottaging homosexuals these days? That’s equality legislation for you. He was equally surprised that there were no tramps present either and we concluded that what you really need when a football is lost in a park - at night - are gay gentlemen of the road, Homo Trampus, if you will.

Eventually both balls did return, but sadly the Blues composure did not. There was no better illustration of this than an extraordinary series of outbursts from Nick, following a disputed throw-in call with Andy. Stramash No. 1 involved hurling a stream of invective at Andy, swiftly followed by Kerfuffle No.2 – hoofing the ball out onto the other pitches (although he did somewhat scuff his shot). This failure to connect properly no doubt precipitated Contretemps No. 3, which involved a skirmish with Tony and the icing on the cake came when he kicked Simon Gas’s ankles as he passed the ball forward. Simon made a suitably appalled gesture to express his disdain for such agricultural antics. Shocking stuff. Mariah Carey would have been proud. 

Final score – Yellows 8, Blues 4

A word about Paul ‘The Guvnor’, who was in attendance this week, but without football boots. This meant that he spent the game watching on from the side and not fetching the ball. Hopefully he’ll remember his full kit next week. 

Incredibly, we spent the vast majority of the evening outside the pub, despite the date being 3^rd October. Aside from discussing Nick’s almighty strop, other items under consideration were first cars and mid-life crisis cars, Islam and Yev’s daughter’s upcoming entrance exam to a posh school. More of which will follow…