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.)