Welcome back. Rather predictably, given the traditional
January desire to burn off the Christmas calorie intake, the first game of 2015
saw a bumper crowd, with Simon Gas feeling so flush with players that he had
the luxury of turning away not only the Guv’nor, but also Ian Gooner, who
turned his ankle on an errant paving slab on the way to Coram Fields. Camden
Council can expect a writ.
With such a bountiful haul of people to pick from, the
Bristolian Commander In Chief went for the following two sides -
Blue team: me, Nick, Steve, Ian Baggies, Mick, Yev, Spizz,
Alan, Simon Ink, Ross
Yellow team: Simon Gas, Tony, Kiwi Nick, Patrick, Alex,
Daniel, Danny, Bristol Paul, Khalid
The Yellows saw plenty of the ball in central midfield
throughout the game, chiefly because they had fine touch players like Alex and
Daniel who were more able than most to retain possession of the ball and to
find team-mates with short passes, despite the presence of so many pairs of legs
on the pitch. The Yellow team took an early two goal lead, seizing on two
avoidable defensive mistakes in ruthless fashion – sadly my memory failed to
record the two scorers, probably because I was too occupied with the noisy
post-mortem that followed both goals.
The Blues were bolstered soon after kick off by the
traditional late arrival of Yev, who joined Spizz up front in the sort of big
man / little man striking partnership that was acceptable, nay de rigeur during the 1980’s. The chief
consequence of this was that the Blues dispensed with any notions of passing in
the midfield and instead went very direct, with Nick and Mick filling in either
flank, along with Ross and Simon Ink. This tactic was moderately successful,
with Spizz pulling one back, but the equalising goal for the Blues came via more
aesthetically pleasing play, as Mick played a long pass for someone on the left
to touch on and into the box where Alan ran on and deftly tapped home off his left
ankle.
What I felt was the key point in the game came while the
scores were locked at two apiece; Danny went on a characteristically surging
run and cut inside on his right foot and unleased a peach of a shot that flew
into the top right hand corner of the net. Even with the extra man the Yellows
couldn’t seem to get back into the game after that, although Alan smacked the
outside of the post and I missed a highly presentable late chance to make the
score 4-3 to the Blues – by this stage Alex and Patrick had combined for the
former to prod the ball home for the Yellows’ fourth goal of the night.
Happily, very little in the way of controversy or
gamesmanship this week, although Ian Baggies was likened to a traffic warden by
Spizz as a result of calling loudly each time the ball went out of play. Yev
and Tony also enjoyed a running duel that narrowly avoided fizzing over into
something more exciting, although the year is yet young so this could be one to
watch.
Final score: Yellows 4 – Blues 2
Any notions that the pub would prove far quieter in the wake
of the abominable dry January and the usual post-Christmas lull were shattered
by the presence of large groups of young people in the Skinners, what with
their beards, card payments and vibrant social lives. The crowd eventually
thinned out and discussions turned, inevitably, to the terrorist outrages in
Paris as well as more pastoral subjects such as how we all spent the festive
period and the fallout from the Christmas football fixtures. Until Friday…
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