I started something…

Another nine aside this week, with eighteen of us making up the Friday night numbers, (obviously). Coming in for his first appearance of the season was Ian Gooner, fresh from his epic bike ride to Arnhem in homage to the fateful ‘Bridge Too Far’ operation toward the end of the Second World War. Ian donned a yellow bib, or rather he didn’t need to, as he was resplendent in an Invincibles-era Arsenal away shirt.

Joining him on the Yellow team were:

Liam, Paul ‘The Guvnor’, Nick, Danny, Joseph, Steve, Peter, Mark

While the Blues looked like this:

Simon Gas, Ian Baggies, Jaime, Alex, Ross, Mick, Bristol Paul, me and Tony

I thought that the sides were relatively evenly balanced, but the final scoreline would suggest otherwise. To understand how we reached this result, here is an account of the match.

The Blues started with Simon Gas in goal, and moved the ball superbly from the off, with Ross operating as the leader-of-the-line and all round target man while Alex, Tony and Mick pulled the strings in midfield. With Simon’s fellow Rovers fan Paul playing in defence the Blues always looked as if they had the better shape and took the lead through Alex after some decent build-up play. As the ball pinged around the Yellows penalty area, Ross forced home the second at the far post following a fizzing centre. 

And the goals kept flowing for the Blues, with Alex getting a second following an outrageous backheel from myself – I started something for someone else to finish - and Ross also getting his brace with typically bright centre-forward play. A lone teenage lad provocatively standing on the edge of the pitch with his ball temporarily distracted Nick and a general air of ire began to build from the Yellows as recriminations started to grow from the ranks. There was a decent spell of pressure from the Yellows when the score was around 3-0 to the Blues and had they managed to get on the scoresheet at this stage the game may have evolved differently. The not inconsiderable talents of Peter, Liam and Nick threatened to grab goals on several occasions, only to be thwarted by some excellent defending from Mick, Ian, Paul and Simon, who had swapped in goal. 

As it was, the Yellows lost all sense of shape and in trying to force their way back into contention left gaping chasms of space. 

Tony took advantage of one such defensive dereliction of duty and strolled through a couple of challenges to roll the ball home, but the chief beneficiary of the growing space at the rear of the Yellows’ lines was Jaime, who managed to score at least twice from wide of the left, calmly lobbing the ball into the goal with not a Yellow shirt in sight. Alex completed his hat-trick late on with a wonderful curling shot that nestled momentarily in the top right hand corner as if to make sure that everyone had a chance to appreciate the goal.

Final score: Blues 9 – Yellows 0

Continuing the cycling theme alluded to earlier, the walk to the Skinners was made all the more memorable for one of those Critical Mass / Reclaim the Streets-type bicycle fiestas, complete with terrible sound systems and annoying whistles. Unfortunately, they also started to reclaim the pavement from pedestrians, much to Ian’s chagrin. I turned around to see the big man remonstrating with some obnoxious courier-bike-type who had apparently threatened to wrap his bike around Ian’s head. My idea of mass bicyclist activism is still shaped by the video to The Smiths’ I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish,  but the behaviour of the cyclists on Friday couldn’t have been less like that of a demure Smiths fan*. 

A quieter night in the pub than last week  - we even got a seat – as Tony, Ian, Simon Gas, Paul and myself discussed holidays in Sicily and Croatia, languages (again), as well as the likelihood of Diego Costa being the devil’s representative on Earth. (He is obviously is nothing of the sort. Jose Mourinho is).  

(*But wait! Watching said promo again the young Morrissey acolytes are positively marauding across the pavement! I take it all back.)

One flew over the goalkeeper’s head…

Another good turnout for the early rounds of 2015/16 season last Friday, with a grand total of na-na-na-na-na-nineteen players, (yes, I know I’ve done that one before). These are the line-ups I came up with:

Blues: Joseph, Steve, Peter, Nick, Ross, Liam, Simon Gas, Mark, Simon Ink, Geoff

Yellows: Jaime, Bristol Paul, Danny, Alan, Mick, Tony, Ian Baggies, me, Callum

The Blues had the extra man, as you can see, and actually kicked off two men to the good as Callum was running slightly late, although on a scale of Late-to-Yev he was positively punctual, (the Ukrainian hitman was still banjaxed with a bad knee and took no part in proceedings).

With Danny starting in goal for the Yellows the Blues should have taken an early opportunity to press home their numerical advantage, but it was the Yellows that seized the lead via Callum, who blasted home from inside the area following some nice approach work. I relieved the Fylde Coast Beckenbauer – as goalkeeper, that is – and the Blues were soon back on terms as I struggled to claim a centre from a corner and someone taller than me, (probably Peter) nodded home an equaliser from all of about four inches.

The Yellows regained the lead, however, with Alan, I believe, getting the next goal. If my memory is somewhat fried, this will be as a direct consequence of what happened next. One moment I was in goal, spying the play far upfield, the next minute the ball emerged from the glare of the floodlights worryingly closer than I would have predicted. I heard a plaintive cry of “Keepers!” and moved – fatally – nearer the edge of the area, whereupon the ball pitched and leapt, maliciously, over my head. I desperately back pedalled and managed to claw the ball off the line into the rapidly advancing gait of Peter, who gleefully smashed the ball over the line from around a foot out. Truly, truly awful.

Despite this defensive calamity, I think I have sufficient cognitive faculty to recall the remainder of the game. Somewhat incongruously, this goalkeeping disaster spurred the Yellows on and they retook the lead – a bullet header from a Jaime via a corner – and then grabbed a two goal advantage with Tony calmly collecting the ball after a couple of rebounds and steering home.

Sadly, this was as good as it got for the Yellows, as the Blues’ additional player and slightly lower average age saw them roar back into contention. Suddenly, everything which came down the Blues’ left hand side was coming off and both Liam and latterly Ross scored from close range, cueing much whoopin’ and hollerin’. Alan had a decent chance late on to equalise after what I thought was a nice left footed cross from myself, but Simon Gas was marshalling his defensive cadre expertly and the evening’s action was at an end.

Final score: Blues 5 – Yellows 4

And thus to the Skinners. It is probably fair to deploy the adjective ‘rammed’ to describe the pub’s appearance last Friday; this was due in no small part to the inaugural game of the Rugby Union World Cup, where Fiji took on the hosts, England. I’m not a big fan of the egg-chasing, but I was even more confused than usual by the fact that England seemed to be playing a Fijian side containing a surprising number of people of European descent. Conversely, England had many more black players than I’d realised. Reader, imagine my confusion at learning the two teams had decided to wear their change strips. And I thought the offside rule in rugby was weird!

I didn’t stay too long as I had work the next morning, a decision hastened by the noisy arrival of what I would wager were international students about to spend their parents’ hard earned cash at the various august seats of learning in our capital city.

That’s it for this week. Goodbye. 

Hello, good evening and welcome

Welcome back, everyone – I hope that you had a good Summer, i.e. one which included some time spent well away from rainy England. Or at least away from London and the south east, as Danny tells me that he spent a balmy fortnight in the Costa del Fylde, chowing down on cake after cake and fish n chips n gravy (!) whilst walking up hill and down dale and putting on fourteen pounds of delicious batter and lard. 

And so the routine of Monday morning text, Friday night game and Saturday morning hangover begins again for another 10 months. Actually, my weekly routine now includes a Friday morning email from Senor Gas, as my role as Picker of the Teams resumes for season 2015/16. With September upon us, here’s what I came up with for the inaugural game of the football calendar:

Yellows: Yev, Steve, Mark, Liam, Nick, Paul, Ross, Jaime, Danny, 

Blues: Simon Gas, me, David, Alex, Peter, Mick, Bristol Paul, Simon Ink

No Ian Gooner this week, as he lost the Battle of Swollen Knee, while Tony was a late withdrawal following a contretemps with Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut over who smoked the last packet of Gauloise. 

With Yev being slightly tardy, just to show that seasons may come and empires may fall but life is inexorably the same, the Blues began the game with the same number of players as the Yellows and quickly took the lead through David. I intercepted a loose pass and fed it to the aforementioned midfield scamp who swapped passes with Alex and poked home from a few yards for the very first goal of the new campaign.

After Yev’s introduction the Yellows began to move the ball around efficiently, using not only the extra man, but also the slightly younger legs of Mark, Liam, Nick and Ross. That said, the score remained at 1-0 to the Blues for the first half hour, with Simon Gas in goal putting in a fabulous performance between the sticks and clawing away numerous goalbound efforts from just under the crossbar and generally commanding his area. That sojourn in Portugal clearly worked wonders. 

Just as the Blues were beginning to dream of a stolid one-nil victory Ross took advantage of a corner that was not fully cleared to ping pong the ball home after an initial header from Liam to make it 1-1 on the night. Thereafter the Blues struggled to repel the incessant pressure from the Yellows forward line, despite the collective skills of Peter, Alex and Mick. Liam got two goals, one a classic poacher’s effort after Simon could only parry a speculative cross from Danny into the Scotsman’s chest and there on into the net; Ross also bagged a brace on the night to give the Yellows a 4-1 lead – quite the turnaround.

On what was a remarkably quiet night in terms of controversy and incident, with only two handball penalty appeals for each side bringing much in the way of on-field blather, Yev mysteriously turned his knee and had to withdraw with just over ten minutes left. This made it eight aside and the Blues seized the initiative and scored two more goals, one from either Alex or Peter and then a final effort from David, who jabbed the ball home after some pleasant interpassing around the edge of the area. The Blues ought to have got a draw given the pressure they had generated, but a mixture of over-elaboration, poor finishing and the not inconsiderable efforts of Paul in defence stymied any thoughts of an equaliser.

Final score: Yellows 4 – Blues 3

Ross opined that he would like a tally kept of goalscorers, assists and key saves for this season, which sounds like a job for Opta, not me. That said, if I’ve omitted any key assists please let me know and if anyone can recall who scored the Blues’ other goal I’ll amend the match report accordingly.

Thus to The Skinners, where the majority of the 17 players enjoyed at least one pint. A warm and muggy evening to kick off the new season, with people swapping tales of their holidays, including Mick’s voyage from Ipswich to Flushing on a 25 foot yacht and Danny’s aforementioned Cumbrian odyssey. What with my Croatian flotilla holiday and Ross’s week in the Aegean we would appear to be quite the nautical bunch these days. The Kiwi barman had obviously spent the Summer growing a very impressive moustache which makes him look like an circus strongman of yore, but aside from this development very little has altered in the pub over the months of July and August.

Until Friday…