And another welcome back to the Friday night football blog. And
another match report for your perusal, following this week’s game.
In his regular Friday morning email Simon explained that we
had sixteen players to choose from, but only sent me the names of fifteen
people, which I found absolutely perplexing until Simon spotted that he’d put
Patrick’s name down twice and omitted that of Ian Baggies. Further confusion
came with the unexpected introduction of Mick and then, conversely, his son Patrick's late arrival (having been given a heavy pre-match billing). This required some
on the fly re-arrangements, which I think it’s fair to say didn’t go too well.
After young Patrick’s arrival, here is what the two sides
looked like:
Yellows: Simon Gas, Jaime, Mario, Dan, Danny, Peter, Paul
Tanner, Ian Baggies and myself
Blues: Bristol Paul, Joseph, Alex, Patrick, Antonio, Liam,
Tony and Mick
Let the record state that originally Tony was on the Yellow
team and were it not for Simon’s dressing room intervention on the Yellow team
he would have stayed. Let the record also state that Simon was concerned the
Yellow team would be too strong (hence the switch) and, furthermore, let the
record state that our attempt to rebalance the teams after the Blues went 2-1
up was very much with the original line-up in mind and not, as had been
claimed, some attempt to engineer a Yellow victory.
Onto the goals. The Yellows took the lead through Peter; at
this stage in proceedings the Yellow / Orange team had a two man advantage
owing to Patrick’s tardiness, but following his arrival the Blues had soon
equalised and it became apparent that a team featuring the ball-winning skills
of Alex and the “ridiculous feet” of Antonio would, to put it mildly, become
rather a handful. Liam scored the second Blue goal and at this stage, fearing
an avalanche, I did try to rejig the sides only to be rebuffed by Tony and Alex
and to be accused of trying to gerrymander the result.
A third, fourth and fifth Blue goal soon followed – Antonio’s
feet were a blizzard of movement and he steered in one, while the team revisions
that never were resulted in the Yellow team losing shape with the consequence
that some very soft goals were conceded in a five minute spell. I think that
the Blues eased off at this point, either deliberately or subconsciously, and
the Yellow team did back into the game, possibly as the Blues found it
difficult to move back up the gears. Mario scored at least twice, both of the goals
that I can recall being fierce efforts that fizzed low into the goal from wide
on the right and then on another occasion from wide on the left (and some
distance). I’d let in another soft goal from Tony by this point to give the
Blues six goals, but a fourth goal for the Yellows proved to be the final score
of the night, despite some late pressure from a midfield triumvirate of Jaime,
Danny and Peter.
Other notable incidents included a rare shot from distance
from Simon Gas and a tough looking tackle from Ian Baggies on Liam that had
everyone wincing. That lad’s ankles must look like a moon crater. On a more
positive note, not so many balls kicked over the fence this week.
Final score: Blues 6- Yellows 4
All in all, not exactly a classic and one perhaps best
forgotten about.
A reasonable turnout at the Skinners, with myself, Mick and
Ian Baggies debating the cultural decay of working class life which has
resulted in far fewer world class footballers from these islands, Wales
excepted. Bristol Paul regaled us with a story about a catty remark his
girlfriend received at a Hot Chip gig, while amongst the usual football chat
(both at Coram Fields and beyond) came a comment from Tony. A man who often seems
on the cusp of outrage, he opined that Arsène Wenger and Jurgen Klopp promote a
style of play that he denigrated as “playground football”, which I thought was
a characteristically obtuse viewpoint. It did, however, provide a splendid
title for this week’s blog.
Hopefully I’ll have a better match report to post next week.
