And so another year of play
ends at Coram Fields, for me at any rate. I’ve managed to get a ticket for the
second day of the second test at Lord’s on Friday, so this is my final match
report of the 2014/15 season.
Simon once more entrusted me
with team selection last Friday and I came up with the following two sides,
unbalanced as they were following a late withdrawal from Simon Ink:
Yellows
Steve
Peter
Andrew (from Morgan Stanley
Dan
Alan
David
Me
Ross
Liam
Blues
Danny
Callum
Andy
Simon Gas
Nick
Tony
Ian Gooner
Yev
With Yev being untypically punctual,
we actually kicked off as described above and despite being a man short the
Blues strolled to victory by six goals to one.
The story of the match was very much
that the Blues dominated proceedings by retaining possession of the ball
through the combined merits of Danny, Callum, Tony and Nick, who was being
cheered to the rafters by a bizarre coterie of media dahlings and assorted hooray
Henrys who packed the area behind the goal and even the other side of the fence
in the park. Apparently they all worked for a video production company that
Nick used to belong to, and his every touch and effort was roared on with
exhortations of ‘Come on, Huggins!’, (or at least that’s what I think they were
saying).
On the scoresheet for the Blues was
Yev, on a number of occasions, Callum, who biffed in a couple from close range
and the aforementioned Huggins himself, who rifled in a memorable goal. Lurking
near the back post he dispatched a corner into the roof of the net on the
volley and the ensuing noise from the braying media types was deafening. The
womenfolk of said company even put away their champagne and strawberries to
gamely applaud the wonder strike. Extraordinary.
Liam did manage to get one back for
the Yellows as he stroked in a long pass, (NB: not a long ball), from Peter. In
truth, the Yellows could have scored at least three or four more toward the end
– Alan spanked one Scholesesque volley directly from a corner onto the
crossbar, where it pinged off high into the heavy Summer air, while Ross drew
an incredible save from Andy as he headed the ball back across the goal from a
corner. Liam nearly doubled his tally with a carbon copy of his first, but
Simon Gas somehow managed to get across and stop the ball on the goal-line as
it was trundling in. Having said that, the Yellows were also unfortunate not to
increase their lead on several occasions, as Ulsterman Andrew pulled off a
series of unlikely last-ditch saves from both Yev and particularly Callum
following some kamikaze defending by the Yellows.
As the media luvvies thronged the
touchline like a lower league football crowd preparing to celebrate escaping relegation
or playoff victory, the whistle went and our time was up. A veritable tour de
force of a performance from Huggins, who may well decide to engineer a watching
crowd of erstwhile colleagues every week.
And so to the Skinners, as we drank
outside in the Halcyon air of high Summer. Topics for discussion included,
inevitably, the gay attire of the capital’s young ladies, Ross’s Nice Nights gig
this week, plans for the upcoming Summer footballing hiatus and why men
shouldn’t be friends with women.
I understand that Alan, Yev, Ian, Steve and
Simon Ink all cycled to Brighton on Saturday, which I imagine looked a bit like
this –
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the blog
this year – have a great Summer and see you all on the 11th September
for the inaugural game of season 2015/16. And for those of you playing on Friday, enjoy
Simon’s largesse and sandwiches!
