Have a smashing Christmas!

The weather last Friday night was anything but festive, with an uncharacteristically balmy evening culminating in al fresco drinking. I think that we had something similar this time last year, so proof of global warming would be appear to be incontrovertible, in Judd Street at any rate.

  

Another round-up for you to compensate for recent radio silence, with three games to catch up on, two of which I played in and one I’m relying on second-hand reports for.

Three weeks ago now we had an eight asider which lingers long in my memory for the principal reason that I scored a goal in it – Grazie, Mario, for the assist as I drilled a ball in from the edge of the area which the Italian dynamo had cushioned and stopped dead. This was one of a few high points for myself that evening, the others coming in the form of what I am going to describe as a cavalcade of assists for Mario and Patrick as the team I was in, captained by Danny, ran out winners by something like 6-4. Other participants that night included Mick, on the opposing team to his son, a tardy arrival from Andrea which had the Blue team in a flap about perceived fairness and Tony, who was grumbling menacingly on the edge of the D and generally being fairly excellent on the ball.

The full line-ups, for the sake of posterity, were as follows:

Yellows – Ian Baggies, me, Andy, Joseph, Simon Gas, Mario, Danny and Patrick

Blues – Paul, Ed, Tony, Charlie, Ross, Alan, Mick and Andrea

With a weekend away with the in-laws leaving Simon Gas in full control of proceedings, including team selection, the second game in this week’s round-up finished with the Muswell Hillbilly on the winning team – plus ca change. Apparently he did agree to make a change to the suspiciously wonky looking starting line-ups, with one diminutive and highly prolific striker being swapping for another shortish man who scores lots of goals, (Mario and Liam passing on the halfway line like ships in the night).

And so to last Friday. Here are your two teams:

Blues – Patrick, Simon Gas, Steve, Ian Gooner, Mario, Tony, David

Yellows – me, Danny, Bristol Paul, Alan, Liam, Paul, Michele, Joseph

In what was by unanimous consensus a very even game, and therefore a victory for The System, the Blues triumphed by the odd goal in eleven.

Danny started off in nets, as is custom, and I think his tenure in goal saw the first score of the night as a breakdown in communication between him and Bristol Paul saw Patrick steal in to slot home. That was the first of at least three goals for the tall LSE undergraduate, another coming after he took advantage of some goalkeeping largesse from myself to lob the ball over my head from all of about eight yards and another after his stretched his long legs to ease past me and fire home. Patrick and Mario took a while to get going, but by the midway point had established your classic big ‘un and littl’un partnership, pinging passes between and betwixt and generally using the space to terrific effect. A little further back Tony was prompting and poking the ball around. Someone other than Patrick (probably Mario) managed to shoot past Bristol Paul, who had unwittingly unsighted me so that I did not see the ball until it slid inexorably past me and into the goal.

Not that the Blues had it all their own way. Liam and Alan also enjoyed a prolific evening with the Caledonian maestro opening his body up to slot home from an acute angle in one excellent move and being unceremoniously upended by his compatriot Steve for Danny to score from the penalty spot. Alan also scored two (?), the second a classic poacher’s finish after the ball had ping-ponged around in the penalty box. Although Simon Gas received some brickbats from his team-mates for slightly errant kicking from goal, he pulled off a number of decent saves, one (rather irritatingly) from me as I volleyed a shot which had been cut back from the byline by Alan. Grrr.

Final score: Blues 6 – Yellows 5

To be honest, a combination of me feeling very out of breath and a blizzard of goals in the middle of the game meant I was labouring under the tragic misapprehension that it was actually 6-5 to the Yellows until Alan broke the news that we’d lost the game. Given that we now live in a post-truth world I think we can all believe what we like.

And thus to the pub, where Steve, Ian, David, Simon, Paul and Bristol Paul all enjoyed a few pints outside. Topics under discussion included mods versus punks versus what Ian assures us where known as ‘Jam Boys’, Christmas itself and lastly the gentrification of Forest Gate which has led to artisan cheese stalls selling wares to bourgeois arrivistes, shops selling overpriced and utterly superfluous hipster tat (this is also something I’ve seen in Crystal Palace) and the bizarre phenomenon of independent coffee shops hustling punters to leave pound coins in a jar to buy coffee for the homeless. So now you know why your classic tramp has a can of Super Kestrel or White Lightening on the go – it’s to take the edge off all of those heritage flat whites they’ve been mainlining.

I’m away this weekend but will await reports of the return of the Christmas curry night with baited breath. Have a great Christmas with you and yours, have a wonderful New Year and here’s hoping that 2017 isn’t quite so batshit mental as 2016.

PS Don’t forget to text Simon Gas with your nominations for player of the year.

Cheers!

PPS If you’re in the mood for nostalgia, I spent a thoroughly enjoyable 25 minutes on Sunday watching this trip back down memory lane. The past is indeed a different country. 

A new Low

It seems like I’m always apologising for the delay or dearth of match reports recently, but I’ve no option other than to begin by stating that this post contains two reports as I’ve been so busy what with one thing and another, the another being work and the one thing being my family. Don’t worry; I’ve not fallen into some sort of post-Trump ennui – I’m old enough to remember Ronald Reagan getting elected as US President, so I know that Americans electing people totally unsuited for public office is not without parallel. This is a country which has Arnold Schwarzenegger as a state governor, lest we forget. Why would we be surprised by the latest turn of events?

Back to the football. The game two Fridays ago represented a new low, hence the image above – never in the decade I’ve been playing football on a Friday night have I seen people leaving the pitch before the final whistle en masse, (if three people can qualify as a masse). The teams were completely wonky thanks to people saying they were coming, then not coming, then coming afterall but instead of someone else who was supposed to be coming. Ergo, we ended up with Peter and Patrick on one team, while his brother John transmogrified into Callum. Oh, and Yev was late, just to put the tin hat on things. 

That said, the two teams were unbalanced – I didn’t hear Tony, who was on the victorious team, offer to change things, but I’ll take him at his word as he insisted after the game that he had made this offer on the half hour mark. As it was, a team with Mick, Peter, Patrick saw off the opposition boasting the not inconsiderable attacking talents of Liam, Mario and Callum by something like 9 goals to 1. Callum got the one, with Peter and Patrick being the chief beneficiaries of their opponents’ defensive largesse. 

In actual fact, the winning side’s final two goals arrived after Mario, Simon Gas and Ian had all deserted the ship, with Simon Gas scurrying after a fitful Mario to let him into the changing rooms and Ian Gooner deciding that he’d seen enough to warrant further participation. In mitigation, the losing team (posterity forgets which colour they donned) did keep the score at 3-0 for about 10-15 minutes, but they never got hold of the ball in midfield and featured very few ‘defenders’ worthy of that mantle.

Funnily enough, the final few minutes saw the losing team threaten more than when they were at full strength, but it’s probably a game best consigned to the dustbin of history, (including cyberspace). Onwards. And thanks to Paul for the sympathetic email. 

Slightly lower numbers were present this Friday just gone, although we had enough for seven aside. Simon Gas heroically made it back from Madrid in time for kick off, complete with novelty straw trilby. His arrival left the two teams like this:

Blues: Michele, Patrick, me, Mick, David, Simon Gas, Bristol Paul

Yellows: Ian Baggies (welcome back!), Mario, Paul, Tony, Danny, Alan, Ross

(No Scotsmen this week; obviously all at home shouting into their salty porridge). 

There was a little shilly-shallying to begin with as Tony’s slight lateness saw me start for the Blues, briefly join the Yellows and then return for the Blues, but I think it’s fair to say that this had a negligble effect on proceedings. There was another deluge of goals this week, although there were more evenly distributed that the previous game. In a break from the conservative and orthodox style of match reporting, I’m opting for a kind of ‘beat’ non-linear reportage which is more akin to freeform jazz than the restrictive oom-pah-pah of traditional match write-ups. 

Mario got the goal of the game, and quite possibly the season, by seizing on a loose ball in the centre circle and pinging it deliciously into the night sky whereupon it fell like an Autumn leaf over Simon Gas’s shoulder and just inside the crossbar. A close second was a score from Tony – I was tracking his run with subtle caution when he shaped to shoot from around 20 yards. ‘Go on, then’ I thought. And go on he did, the ball sailing off Tony’s left foot and nestling into the top corner. The Yellows may have had all the best tunes in terms of goals, but the Blues had more tracks to fill an album and bar an odd ten minute spell in the middle of the game when Mick, Patrick and Michele were clearly comparing sleeve notes and radical finger placements on their instruments, the Blues hit the strings more often than their counterparts and ultimately blew their horns harder than their opponents. Michele and Patrick shared the lion’s share of the goals for the Blues, linking up time and again to slot, ping and scat the ball home. Mick, as bandleader, cajoled and threatened and eventually conceded that his maverick son was playing his own way by eschewing some of the more obvious passes to his father and team-mate. In one move he demonstrated his attacking élan by swerving over a delicious twenty yard cross to his father’s feet; the father being so proud of his son’s skill he couldn’t overcome his proud tears to pass the ball into the net from about three yards.

What else happened? Not much, other than I managed to get on stage for the encore and steer the ball past Ross in goal. 

Final score: Something like 9 – 5 to the Blues. But scores are for squares, man!

And so the pub, which was showing the England v Scotland game. A Caledonian vision in pink were bested by a very poor English team which scored with three headers to get past the auld enemy, and with Raheem Sterling contriving to miss an open goal in a manner which would have had the Coram Fields contingent shaking their heads. The only other pubchat worth reporting was of the existence of celebrity Bristol Rovers’ fans. I give you Roni Size and Rod Hull (not sure about the Emu). Oh, and Ian Holloway, who they could probably do with as manager, never mind fan, judging by the result at the New Den last Saturday.

Until next time….

Nailbiting finish

Morning everyone. Feels very Autumnal today, doesn’t it? I thought that I’d inadvertently got up an hour earlier than usual this morning, as it was still dark at the station. Bleugh.

Right, ten goals and much else to get through this morning.

Here are your teams from Friday:

Yellows: me, Joe, Mario, Mick, Peter, Simon Gas, Callum, Paul (The Guv’nor) and Liam

Blues: Andy, Steve, Tony, Danny, Michele, Patrick, Mark, Nick and Ross

With Ed being a late withdrawal young Patrick came in for his first game in a while – there was some confusion when he arrived with his pater familias, as without Pete – who was late – the Yellows looked a bit light, and my intention was for Patrick to play as a Yellow until Peter arrived, much to the chagrin of the Blue team. Happily, Peter rocked up about two minutes after Patrick, so all was well.

Game on!

Rather a few goals to try and recall this morning, but I’ll have a go. Patrick turned on the turbo-boosters / ran quite fast past someone twenty years older than him with much shorter legs (delete as you feel most appropriate) to blast around myself on the Blues’ right and slot home past Simon Gas in goal to get the Blues’ noses in front. Also on the scoresheet for the Blue team was Danny, who managed to drill home from just outside the area through a thicket of middle aged ankles, and Ross, who bagged a brace; in fact he would have a hat-trick had it not been for a fabulous save from Simon Gas in goal, who managed to tip over an equally stupendous volley that was dipping viciously as it fizzed toward the goal. The second goal came after I failed to track his run properly – Ross continued his run toward goal when a Blue defender got a foot to the first ball before Nick fired back a cross for the sometime pop star to slot home.

As for the Yellows, well they scored some goals, too. I must confess to being slightly confused by the progression of the scoreline, chiefly as a result of what was comfortably the most controversial moment of the game. Mick took a corner from the Yellows’ right which sailed across the goal just under the bar for Peter to gleefully nod in. Danny immediately, and incredibly loudly and s l o  w  l   y exhorted to all and sundry that Mick’s corner ball had gone out before looping back in, which sounded unlikely, but appeared to be the final decision. If anyone knows otherwise, they can let me know.

In and around this ghost goal, Peter and Liam both got on the scoresheet, although the late October fog has not lifted sufficiently to permit me to describe them in much detail. My memory is slightly less hazy when it comes to describing the Yellows’ final two goals, however; chiefly as I scored them both in a turn of events that’s as rare as hen’s teeth, or a magnanimous reaction to defeat from Jose Mourinho.

The first came after I managed to get hold of the second ball following a corner, with Mick aerially challenging for the initial ball – I volleyed home from the edge of the area into the bottom left hand corner, with the ‘keep admittedly slightly unsighted. The second was similar, although this time I hit the ball with my somewhat more conventional right foot. I believe that the second goal made it 5-4 to the Blues on the night, with Ross’s late goal making it five apiece.

After some wrangling over the initial fairness of the sides I think we all came off feeling that a (high scoring) draw was about right. And other than some consternation from Tony that someone touched him while jumping for the ball we had a remarkably rancour-free evening.

And so to the pub. With a smaller turnout than would is custom, discussions covered holidays with young children, Villa’s new manager, and the new Rye IPA on tap in the Skinners, before we moved onto two anecdotes from Mark and Liam. Mark’s story concerned tractors with three foot spikes to burst the distended stomachs of dead sheep in the Cumbrian hills during the foot and mouth outbreak, while Liam’s tale of nailbiting left quite an impression on a recruitment consultant at Green Park tube in the most literal way possible. How would you remove a crescent of finger nail from a woman’s cheek that you’ve just met? Answers on a postcard.

And finally this week, how funny is this?

Tennis score

Friday rolls around again and that can only mean one thing: football. At Coram Fields. At seven pm. With Simon Gas and some assorted gentlemen of varying years and abilities. And that, as sure as night follows day means the match report, conveyed to you in blog form on a page ostensibly paying tribute to New Wave maverick Spizzenergi. So, here goes…

Last Friday saw a higher turnout than has been custom of late, with ten playing nine. Here are your two teams:

Blues: Ross, Liam, Simon Gas, Bristol Paul, Michele, Nick, Ed, Andy, Mark

Yellows: Alan, Danny, Tony, Simon Ink, me, Joe, Peter, Yev, David, Paul

This game’s final result was a tennis score, but it never felt that one-sided and by common consensus the score should have been much closer. The Blues took the lead with a strange goal as Danny was caught slightly unawares in goal and as we all waited for Liam to strike Andy appeared next to him to sweep the ball home. That was as good as it good the Blue team, however.

Yev arrived at this stage and with the additional man the Yellows slowly made their advantage count. Once the Yellows had got back on terms Alan took them into the lead with a fabulous swivelled volley from just outside the area that flew into the far corner. Danny was also on the scoresheet as the Yellows finished more clinically than their opponents, who for all their possession and attacking threat from Ross and Liam lacked a cutting edge in the last third.

Tony had a great game marshalling the massed ranks of the Yellows as they endeavoured to stem the flow of balls from Michele and Nick toward the Yellow goal. As the game wore on the Yellows ruthlessly punished the inevitable gaps at the Blues’ rear and Peter and Joe both had barnstorming games that arguably made the difference on the night. I think that after Yev banged one home, Peter got the goal his performance deserved by lashing home from all of about two inches, although he did manage to sky at least two shots over the bar and into the park.

Alan went onto bag a brace, and one of either Peter or Yev also scored twice to make the final score 6-1 to the Yellows.

A relatively controversy-free evening for once, despite the presence of some of the more combustible Coram Fields regulars on the field.

I skipped the pub this week, as I am still feeling the effects of uncharacteristic four-nights in a row booze stint last week, but I am sure a good time was had by all. See you all on Friday. 

I think I mist again...

Good morning everyone and welcome to another week on Planet Football. I do love this time of year; the mists hanging in the fields as they wait for the weak autumnal sun to rise high enough to slowly frazzle them away; the desiccating conkers in the browning leaves; the growing ennui as you realise that there’s yet another international break stretching out before you to disrupt the sporting biorhythms of this ancient land.

On to the match report, then. A lower turnout last week, with seven playing eight. With Tony being a late withdrawal and Yev being characteristically late, we kicked off with around five aside before the two sides gradually swelled in size.

Here are your teams:

Yellows: Joe, Simon Ink, Ross, Mario, Danny, Alan and Ed

Blues: Bristol Paul, Simon Gas, me, Steve, David, Liam, Nick and Yev

I missed an excellent chance very early on when the teams were roughly five aside, having been played through by Liam, and thereafter chances for the Blues did not exactly roll along with any regularity. The Yellows took a one nil lead, probably deservedly, through a fierce shot from Simon Ink, before the Ukrainian cavalry arrived to give the Blues the additional man.

Despite this extra resource the Blues struggled to create very much in the way of clear-cut opportunities and the Yellows’ younger legs and sharper finishing was enough to prevail on the night. Having taken a two-goal lead via Ross the Blues managed to get back into things with a typically muscular finish from Liam, who shrugged off the attentions of Joe, who has all of about six inches in height on him, and burst through from midfield to calmly pass the ball home.

Then came what proved to be the critical point in the game, as Steve and Danny went into battle inside the Blues’ penalty area. Steve duly emerged with the ball, but apparently only after taking the man. Somewhat controversially, and much to Simon Gas’s chagrin, a penalty was awarded. Mario made no mistake to make it three-one to the Blues.

That was just one of a number of hotly contested decisions on Friday. Earlier Alan had tried to emulate George Best at Windsor Park all those years ago and prevent Simon from throwing the ball out, but was penalised for ungentlemanly conduct. Alan was still muttering about the rank unfairness of it all as he headed toward Kings Cross an hour and a half later. Meanwhile, Liam strenuously tried to relieve Danny of the ball while the latter was in goal, only to be adjudged to have fouled the keeper by Mario, who perhaps took a more southern European view of a challenge on the goalie. Given Danny wasn’t really in control of the ball I thought that was harsh. And finally, Danny was later adjudged to have committed a handball when the ball bounced off his chest and hit his hand which was over his head, (a move now known as a Koscielny). This handball was given, with Alan being once again very much aggrieved, but even Danny conceded that he agreed with the decision.

As the cold September rain started to fall the accuracy of the ‘passing’ went out of the window and what had been a relatively high quality game deteriorated. There was time for one more goal, as Liam stabbed home from a corner to make it 3-2. And also a word for a good cross from Nick that I just failed to head on target. Shame.

Final score: Yellows 3 – Blues 2

And so to the pub. Only a few drinkers this week, but topics under conversation included the new £5 note, which would appear to be a good way to get strangers talking, last week’s Champions League thriller in Glasgow which showed that Man City are far from invincible and how much time it is permissible to spend in the pub on a Friday night when your significant other is at home with a young baby.

I’ll be missing this week’s game as I’m going to see The Kills at the Camden Roundhouse – this is if I can get my wife to leave our daughter at home with her mother-in-law – so see you all in two weeks’ time.

Spidey senses

A very warm welcome back to the Spizzenergi Friday Night Football blog, after a Summer long hiatus in which the England football team reached a new low, contriving to lose to a country with a population smaller than that of Cornwall, forlornly chasing the shadows of a team of Nordic ubermensch. And if you thought things couldn’t get worse, they then appointed Sam Allardyce as the new manager.

What else has been happening? Jose Mourinho showed why he’s the best man at spending other people’s money manager in football by spunking £80m on a half decent midfielder who his new club had previously let go for next to nothing and then slating his own players after a couple of early season reverses. Oh, and we have a new Prime Minister who is going to reintroduce Grammar Schools, mainly because she went to a jolly good one.

Some things remain reassuringly stable, however, and as we lurched into the second week of September the phone chirruped with a text from Simon Gas to announce the return of football. Hurragh!

There’s been three games played so far in 2016-2017, of which I’ve played in two, so a massive apology for the dearth in match reports. What can I say, I’m a very busy man. Hopefully, normal service will be resumed forthwith.

Of the two games played up to Friday, I can reveal that the first game was a little lopsided thanks to a combination of people arriving late and my inability to count; my chief memory from the season opener was Ian Gooner’s tour de force of an appearance, scoring at least twice and generally giving the impression of having spent August at a pre-season Alpine training camp. There was also a return to action from Ross, whose better half apparently shares my wife’s predisposition for looking for online parenting tips at 3.00 am.

I missed the second game, but apparently Steve scored with his nose. You heard it here first.  

Last Friday’s game was billed as nine aside, but there was a phantom Morgan Stanley employer slated to take part and as such, it ended up eight v nine. But the Ninth Player was none other than the lesser spotted Spizz, mercurial post-punk idle idol. (Hurragh again!). Actually, he’s not been so idle, as evidenced here.

And here are what your two teams looked like:

Blues: Peter, Liam, Steve, Tony, Michele, Joe, Bristol Paul, Mick

Yellows: Mark, Simon Gas, Danny, Andrea, Mario, me, Tom, Spizz, Ed

Tom arrived slightly late to the fray and by this stage the Blues had already taken the lead through an own goal – something which became rather a theme of the match – via Ed, who attacked the space in which the Blues would have had a striker and promptly attacked the ball into the vacant net. Steve nodded home from a corner shortly after as everyone tried to mark Peter, rather like Lilliputians trying to tether Gulliver, and the score became three nil to the Blues when Michele fizzed home a shot into the roof of the net as I groped in vain at thin air.

My usually ignominious spell in nets was brightened by one notable save, however. Using my newly acquired spidey-senses, (these have come along with a vicious spider bite and a swollen leg picked up in the tropical glades of SE20 that has necessitated a ten day course of antibiotics) I managed to get something in the way of Liam’s point-blank header and push the ball over the bar.

Thereafter there ensued something of a mini-comeback from the Yellows, as Mark hit home a real daisy-cutter which took a deflection off of me and trickled into the net past a surprised Liam in goal. Soon after Mario scored what was arguably the goal of the game as he picked his shot and blasted in off the upright to make it 3-2. However, calamity once again befell the Yellows’ defence as Danny and Simon Gas got their wires crossed and managed to concede another own-goal with Peter lurking menacingly just behind them.

Spizz did make his presence felt by loitering close enough to the goal keeper to force yet another own goal from one of the Blues’ defensive titans (Steve, I think) which made it 4-3, but with time running out and the Yellows trying to press forward Liam managed to intercept Simon Gas’s forward pass and calmly lob the ball from all of about twenty-five yards to complete the scoring.

Final score: Blues 5 – Yellows 3

Honourable mentions to both Danny and Tom, whose sterling defensive work didn’t deserve to end in vain, while Michele, Peter and Tony’s movement proved too much for a Yellows midfield that saw plenty of the ball but couldn’t hang onto it.

Just the one pint of ‘Doosra’ for me this week, which sadly seems to be to the norm these days (one pint that is, not Urdu word for ‘the wrong one’). As such, other than a quick discussion of 1970’s cigarette advertising and Simon’s new job, I can’t report on the full goings on in the Skinners.

Until Friday! 

Je m'appelle Ian

And so for the final time in 2015-2016 we have our Friday night match report. Rather a lot to get through; Simon greenlit no fewer than twenty one of us for the climax of the season. Here are what the two teams looked like:

Blues: Andy, Bristol Paul, Steve, Mick, Mark, Joe, Michele, Simon Gas, Peter, Paul El Tannero and Yev

Yellows: me, Ian, David, Danny, Nick, Charlie, Andrew, Callum, John (Peter’s brother) and Liam

For the second time in as many weeks the game ended up being fairly one-sided, which is never ideal. The Blues ran away with this one, although this was probably due to some extent by good performances and not so good performances as much as some duff team selection. Mick got things underway with a smartly taken finish after Danny in goal had parried the original shot – Mick calmly killed the ball and slotted home from close range. Mick was adamant (not Adam Ant) that he got a brace on the night, but you’ll need to ask him about goal number two when we reconvene in September as I can’t remember it.

Mark was also in amongst the goals with two fine finishes, the first the culmination of a good move from a Blue attack that saw Mark fire home with what has become trademark aplomb. The second of his goals saw him control a half-clearance from a corner and deftly lob the ball just inside of the left hand post.

The other goal – or the other goal I can recall, which for the purposes of this blog is all that matters – was another impressive piece of football with Peter applying the coup de grace to a sweeping move down the Blue left (props to Yev there), which left Andrew in goal with no chance.

All in all, I should put my hands up to loading the Blues with too many defensive titans, as the Yellows struggled to break down a back line containing Steve, Bristol Paul, Simon Gas and Joe, despite the assorted talents of Charlie, Callum and Yev. A word also for Andy, who appeared to be channelling some hybrid of France Baresi and Bobby Moore by thwarting wave after wave of Yellow attacks – Liam particularly seemed to come unstuck against the Sheffield colossus, although the quality of balls into him only deteriorated as the game continued. Nick was honest enough to admit he had a poor game, but accurately pointed out that he wasn’t the only one to have a bit of a shocker as the Yellow team struggled to clear their lines, struggled to get out from the goalkeeper and struggled to fashion anything more than the odd half chance.

Final score: Blues 5 – Yellows 0

And onto the pub for an end of season finale. As befits the middle of July, it was a warm and enjoyable evening, made more enjoyable by Simon Gas’s largesse as he bought not one but two bottles of sparkling Italian refreshment to toast Bristol Rovers’ promotion and, very generously, the arrival of my daughter Betty. He truly is a prince amongst men. Other recipients of a toast were Andy, as most improved player following his defensive tour de force and Simon himself for another year of selfless and patient co-ordination.

As the evening wore on, conversation turned to what Private Eye used to term ‘Ugandan affairs’ and some truly eye-watering accounts of various members of the team’s relations with the fairer sex over the years. No names will be mentioned, but the story about the haemorrhoids will stay with me for some time. When there’s talk of the ladies Yev is never far away, and he was on classic form, luring two French tourists into a conversation about who-knows-what, with Steve and Mick providing the wing support.

Never one to be left out of a late night pubchat, even when there’s a language barrier, the self-styled “cunt’s Cunt”, Ian of Arsenal fame, decided to get in on the action. With the assistance of myself, Liam and Mark (as well as Google translate), Ian bowled over to the aforementioned coterie of French madames, Yev and Mick and announced “Je m’appelle Ian. Malhereusement, je viens de me chie”. Which, for you Anglo-Saxon monoglots, means ‘My name is Ian. Unfortunately, I’ve just shit myself”.

See you in September. 

Blue Friday

Good day, footballers, Spizzenergi fans and the idly curious. It’s time for your weekly match report from Coram Fields.

Last Friday saw the very welcome sight of Simon Gas, and with it a return to order and stability in the galaxy. Tour of Duty in Vietnam over, these were the two teams that I’d prepared:

Blues: Andy, Tony, Alan, Simon Gas, Vitaliy, Peter, Bristol Paul, Mario and Tom

Yellows: me, Danny, Simon Ink, Mark, Yev, Callum, Michele, Mick and Gary

A few qualifiers here – firstly, as expected, the two Ukrainians were late. No matter, they balanced themselves. The Morgan Stanley contingent also arrived in dribs and drabs and in the chaos I’ve just realised that Mick ended up on the Yellow team when he was supposed to be a Blue. The final piece of the jigsaw, which meant a nine aside game, was the Aussie Tom, who was assigned to the Blue side, erroneously as it turned out.

By this stage – i.e. Tom’s arrival - the Yellows had taken a two goal lead and Tony was already clamouring for a change. The one switch that did take place was Alan swapping with Danny, which made no difference to proceedings whatsoever.

Unusually, the game collapsed into a very one-sided affair, with the Yellows prevailing by a landslide 8-1. Had Mick played for the team he was picked to represent it may have made some difference, as he was his usual self, cajoling and urging on his team-mates and organising the disorganised. That said, a team featuring the combined talents of Mario, Peter, Alan / Danny and Vitality, to say nothing of Tony himself, should have done much, much better. Callum and Michele were both excellent for the Yellows, closing down space, pressing high up the pitch and forcing mistakes and taking advantage to score a dollop of goals. Alan also got on the scoresheet, charging down a goalkick and scoring from all of about nine inches.

Gary, who apparently featured the other week, also had a great game and ensured that the Yellow team never lost shape, despite the threats from Mario and Tony.

By the closing stages of the game we’d reached the stage that anything that could go wrong for the Blues did go wrong, as chances that would normally be tucked away went bagging and Danny scored a bizarre own goal that shanked in off his instep and flew high in the roof of the net from a tight angle.

All in all, not the best game, although if the Blue team had spent less time whinging and moaning about the sides the final score would have been a bit closer.

No pub report this week as nappy changing duties continue to call, but I’ve been provisionally greenlit for Friday for 2015/2016’s final game and hopefully a comprehensive end of season review, complete with awards and top five lists.

In the meantime, I’d encourage everyone to turn up on time on Friday, as it does help, and to refrain from accusing me of gerrymandering the teams to ensure I’m on the winning side, as this wouldn’t stand up to even the most cursory of analysis. 

Apocalypse? Now!

Good day all – I write after a four week hiatus chiefly caused by the advent of fatherhood. I’ve got two match reports to try and catch up on, both of them composed as our leader and spiritual guide lays in a malarial funk in tropical Indo-China. As ever when Senor Gas leaves us, even for a few days, chaos and disorder soon descend and we are left in a figurative Dark Age like those Britons left exposed to waves of invaders from the continent in the wake of the decline of the Roman Empire.

But I think we’ve heard plenty about English nationhood over the past two weeks.

The first game to try and relay started off with five versus six, as the immediate fallout from the immigration plebiscite seemed to spawn disarray in the phalanx of players from Morgan Stanley. In all five players from Morgan Stanley showed up, but to misquote Eric Morecambe, not necessarily in the right order. Joseph tipped up first, alongside his mate Nick, followed about five minutes later by Norn Iron’s Andrew, in tandem with a ringer named Graham who was not even on Simon’s roster of players sent via SMS from Vietnam. Finally, Peter rocked up at around 7.25. At this stage I offered the Blue team, via the auspices of their captain Mick, their pick of the Yellow players in an attempt to balance the teams and they very sensibly selected Danny. Ergo, what had hitherto been a reasonably competitive game Petered out (pun intended) into a rather one-sided affair, with the Blue team running out eventual 5-2 winners. For the sake of posterity, here are what I think the teams were:

Yellows: me, Simon Ink, Graham (MS), Nick (MS), Liam, Andy and Peter (MS)

Blues: Tony, Paul, Mark, Andrew (MS), Joseph, Mick and, after a short spell for the Yellows, Danny

Lord knows who scored – I can recall playing a deliciously weighted through ball for Liam to dispatch without breaking stride and I think that was one of a brace for the Caledonian maestro; for the Blue team I can remember one goal arriving in slightly bizarre fashion as a high, swirling ball landed on the crossbar and evaded Andy’s despairing lunge in goal to bounce invitingly for either Mark or Joseph to push home. All in all, a bit of a mess, although at least Tony was happy having initially thrown up his arms in horror at the prospect of his team not winning.

Onto this week, as once more Simon pinged on details of the players scheduled to take part in the action. As alluded to in the opening paragraph of this report, chaos descended as a) some players did not turn up (hello to Bristol Paul and Morgan Stanley’s Callum) and b) Mick forgot the bibs. As such, my much vaunted Player Attributes Scoring System went out of the window and everything became a bit random, quite literally.

The newly installed Chaos Player Selection System saw one team self-select on the basis of wearing white, yellow or orange tops, with their opponents donning anything darker. From a personal perspective the fact that I am very colour blind made this even more of a challenge. From memory, this is what we ended up with:

White / Orange / Yellow: Steve, Nick, Mark, Yev, Ian Gooner, Tony, David, Danny and (eventually) Tom from MS

Darks: me, Mario, Will, Andy, Liam, Joseph, Mick, Simon Ink

Despite the somewhat haphazard nature of team selection, we ended up with a fairly even game that was decided by the odd goal in five. The Dark team were probably a mite stronger until the tardy arrival of chirpy antipodean Tom (what is it with Morgan Stanley employees and timekeeping?), when a pseudo-philosophical discussion about whether his light green top best presented itself as a dark or light top ensued, which was settled by more epic moaning from Tony who accused me of trying to engineer the teams so that I’d win. The very idea.

Liam and Mario were on target for the Dark team, but despite playing some great football through the two afore-mentioned strikers, aided by the superb Will and corralled by the ceaseless chiding of Mick, they couldn’t quite keep the Light team, buoyed by their man advantage, at bay.

After Ian Gooner had netted an equaliser for the lighter team through some serious goalhanging and acting as a ricochet device, the winning goal came after I came after a cross that I was always struggling to reach and Nick, who probably has a six inch height advantage on me, nodded home into an empty net.

Final score: Whites / Yellows / Oranges and Green 3 – Darker Tops 2

And so to the Skinners, for my first visit in a month. I watched Wales’ supremely impressive 3-1 over Belgium in the company of Simon Ink and David, unaware that most of the Friday contingent were watching from the other side of the bar.

All hail our near neighbours and their invincible team spirit. I keep reading that the ongoing embarrassment that is the English national team is down to the failure of the English football set-up, but given virtually all of Wales’ team play or have come through the domestic system I think that’s bullshit. If the FA could ever do just one thing right and pick a young English manager with his best years ahead of him, rather than a European aesthete looking for one final big payday or a superannuated coneman without the confidence to make decisions we might just, just, be able to create a team that is more than the sum of its parts who we could be proud of. I won’t hold my breath.

The wandering Gasman returns on Friday for the penultimate game of the 2015/16 season. See you then. 

The Italian Job

Greetings one and all, or should that be Ciao! Friday saw Coram Fields go very Italianate as we had quattro calciatori Italiani,which might mean ‘four Italian footballers’. In what was a reduced field, certainly in comparison to recent weeks, your two teams lined up thusly:

Yellows (Gialli): Aussie Tom, Paul of the Antarctic, Mario, Michele, Tony, Mick, Charlie and Liam

Blues (Azzuri?): Simon Gas, Ian Gooner, Andrea, Roberto, me, Danny, Patrick and Yev

With Yev arriving at just before ten past seven, the Yellow team were a man short for the first passage of play and deployed a ringer in goal, a chap called Immanuel, who may well have southern European, too. Despite the scores being level when Yev arrived there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth as if I hadn’t properly balanced the two teams, but we stayed at eight aside until Yev opened the scoring from an acute angle. To be fair, the Yellows could have been about four or five up by this stage, but Patrick and Yev were being curiously profligate, with headers going wide and close range efforts going begging. 

With the score at 1-0 to the Yellows the Blue team insisted on a change and with the Yellows seeing an awful lot of the ball this was probably the right thing. Cue the return of Immanuel, which sounds like a racy film title from the 1970’s, who played sweeper-keeper for the Blues for the remainder of the game. Not that the extra man made much immediate difference, as the Yellows’ lead stretched with three goals from Patrick; one taking a straightforward ball over the top and calmly tucking home past the ‘keeper and another taking advantage of a nicely weighted pass from myself to ram home into the bottom corner. 

Andrea was arguably the man of the match, as his selfless positioning at the rear of the Yellows’ defence helped his compatriot Roberto link up with Patrick and Yev in midfield and Danny at left half. Only when he decided to swap positions with Roberto toward the end of the game did things start to go awry for the Yellows, as Liam sought to hold up the ball to bring in Mario, Tony and Charlie. 

With around five minutes to go Simon Gas conceded the Yellows’ first reverse, possibly from Liam. I replaced him in nets and promptly let in two more – both were chiefly down to the Yellows not having enough players in defence deep enough and Michele, I believe, pounced to make it 4-2 to the Yellows. Shortly afterwards Mick found himself free on the right hand side of the box and fired the ball toward goal; I managed to stop it with my feet but I was helpless as it squirted to Mario who diligently prodded the ball over the line from all of about two yards.

With the Yellows teetering they just about managed to hand on for the win, although I had to punch the ball out for a corner as Mario wound up for a bicycle kick and the resulting corner came to nought.

Final score: Yellows 4 – Blues 3

No pub for me again, as impending paternity looms large. Simon Gas explained he’ll be off on his travels again later this month, as he heads to Vietnam in a few weeks for a Heart of Darkness piece of reportage, or at least an article about the south east Asian economy. 

I’ll be away for the next fortnight, so in that time please enjoy the game and be patient with whoever picks the teams.

Arrivederci.