It’s a picnic in the park for Huggins!

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 11^th September for the inaugural game of season 2015/16.  And for those of you playing on Friday, enjoy Simon’s largesse and sandwiches!