Shins, chins and a dreadful din

Very quick blog round up from me this week, as I’m heading off for a week’s bobbing around the Adriatic tomorrow morning.

Following last week’s expansive match, in which people had time to address the ball, collect their thoughts, smoke a pipe, select either their left or right plate before pushing the leathery sphere into space, last night’s fandango was more like a riot in a match box, with players pushed to have more than one touch before clattered into submission by a concussive symphony of clashing shins, chins and elbows.

Ten played nine*, with the two teams as follows:

Blues: Steve (not Simon Ink, as planned), Simon Gas, Alex, Ian Cortina, Tony, Danny, David, John M, Jaime Lannister (another of Simon’s Morgan Stanley colleagues), Yev, Mark

Yellows: James, Nick, Ian Baggies, me, Peter, Liam, Bristol Paul, Alan

(* Unless I’m having an absolute shocker I make that eleven plays eight – apologies if I’ve put anyone on the wrong team there).

The Yellows took the lead through Alan following a rare goalkeeping howler from Danny before the Blues equalised and then went into the lead through Yev; his scuffed shot managed to wrong foot me and slip into the goal. I understand that Alan then scored again following another defensive blunder from the Blues, this time from Ian, although I was talking to Paul at the time so missed what happened. Two all. The Yellows then extended their lead first to 3-2 and then 4-2 with Alan completing his somewhat spawny hat-trick and Peter getting in on the act. Again, I’m a bit hazy on some of the details. 

Thus, at eight ’o’ clock the score was Yellows 4 – Blues 2

As no-one was coming on at eight, we were given the green light to play for an undetermined amount of time and in the next ten minutes Yev scored twice, the first a fizzing effort following a goalmouth melee and the second a crashing volley which pinged in off the far post. 

Four apiece. 

It should be said at this stage that the Blues had contrived to miss a number of highly presentable chances in normal time, with first David and then John spooning over the bar from about four yards out and with Ian blasting the ball directly at the Banks-like Bristol Paul in goal.

At four all – which I think we should agree was the final score – Ian Baggies had to leave and at this point Ian crossed the Rubicon to replace his namesake. Unbeknownst to most people, Simon Gas - who’d earlier made Coram Fields history by calling a foul throw, much to Tony’s ire - had said ‘next goal wins’ and as Ian Cortina found himself in the position of the last defender he threw up his arms in exasperation as an overrun Yellows defence conceded a final ‘goal’.

And so to the pub, for more al fresco drinking. Things we learnt at the Skinners this week: golf is one of the many, many things that Ian objects to at a visceral level; John and Peter have four other siblings; plenty of other people have gone to Croatia, so I am in good company.

Next week brings something of a break from the norm, as Tony is bringing a coterie of stags to play a Simon Gas Select XI, which will be different, if nothing else. See you in two weeks and enjoy the incoming heatwave.

Spizz: the end?

Two games to catch up on today as last week passed without the customary match report, chiefly because I was away last weekend, but also as a consequence of a rather trying week at work.

Two Fridays ago saw yet another ten v nine affair, one where I got the teams horribly wrong, with one side, the team I was on, boasting the collective talents of Antonio, who I’d forgotten played for the Bologna Youth team, and Peter from Morgan Stanley. Not even the muscular attentions of Peter’s brother John could prevent the team wearing what I think were Blue bibs from running up a tennis score, although a chap called Callum – another of Simon Gas’s colleagues – did get one impressive goal back for the other team.

Sorry about that.

In something a break from recent weeks, Friday 19^th June saw us struggling for numbers for the first time in what seems like months – six played seven, with the two teams as follows:

Yellows: Simon Ink, Paul, Danny, Joe, Dan, Ross, me

Blues: Yev, Mick, Hugh (from the old 7.45 crowd at Old Street), Mark, Simon Gas, Bristol Paul

The Blues surged into a rapid two goal lead, the first coming from the West Country defensive lynchpin of Paul as he calmly collected a right wing centre from Mick and slotted it into the top corner from all of about three yards. Yev then joined the fray and promptly got in on the action by scoring the second goal. 

The Blues then rallied, with their best two players (Danny and Joe) getting out of goal and onto the pitch, with Danny getting one back to make it 2-1. Unfortunately, the Blues then re-established their two goal advantage almost immediately, with a goalmouth melee ending in either Hugh or Yev forcing the ball over the line.

Danny then scored what was the goal of the game, slaloming his way around four players, including Simon Gas in goal before rolling the ball over the line. Mick was protesting about a perceived errant elbow during the build-up, but there could be no denying Blackpool’s answer to Steven Gerrard. A fourth goal from the Blues (another score that arrived following a penalty area scramble) proved to be the winner, although the Yellows did get another goal through Simon Ink, who raced onto a through ball from Dan and slotted home into the corner.

Final score: Blues 4 – Yellows 3

All in all, a much closer game than the previous week’s and plenty of running around, too.

News from the world of music, or at least the post-punk scene, as the legendary and now lesser spotted figure of Spizz hove into view just before the kick off. The great man was off to see Essex proto-punks and doyens of 70’s pub rock, Eddie and the Hotrods.

Clad entirely in customised Spizzenergi attire, the Arthur Daley of punk announced to a disbelieving coterie of Friday night footballers that owing to a combination of push bike mishaps, bad knees and – get this – gout, he was retiring from footballing activity forthwith. Leaving aside the notion that the Where’s Captain Kirk? hitmaker could be felled by the decidedly unpunk ailment of gout, a condition which you’d more readily associate with sclerotic county colonels, or possibly a romantic poet, this is distressing news indeed. What will we do without Spizz’s New Wave goal-hanging, to say nothing of his somewhat histrionic refusal to go in goal for fear of injuring his semi-mythical guitar plucking digits? And, lest we forget, this very blog was named and created in honour of the diminutive Spizzenergi frontman and a football tour of Germany which quite possibly never happened. Say it ain’t so, Spizz! 

Hopefully, like any music icon of the 1970’s and 80’s, he’ll head back out of retirement when the time is right. Like, say, November, when facing the cost of Christmas. 

Onto the pub this week for some al fresco drinking. There was a good conversion rate of footballers to pub drinkers, with most of the throng from the pitch making it to the Skinners. Conversation bobbed around topics such as blur’s upcoming Hyde Park gig, Danny’s confessions of a driving instructor, the price of beer and, ultimately, Jim Dale and his award winningone man show. And they said the chat show was dead – they just need to broadcast live from Judd Street each week.

Until Friday, drive safely.

Uber fail

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