Go Wilde!

Hot on the heels of last week’s game and the ensuing patchy match report comes… another game and hopefully a more comprehensive blog, as (happily) I was able to play the full hour this week.

Here are your teams:

Blues – Chris (another Morgan Stanley alumnus), Danny, Simon Gas, Ross, me, Mario, Nick and Patrick

Yellows: Bristol Paul, Tony, Steve, Yev, Ian Gooner, Mick and Peter 

Antonio was supposed to play for the Yellows but never arrived; with Yev rocking up at around 7.15 the Yellows started with Nick as a make weight, meaning that we kicked off with seven aside.

Danny began in goal for the Blues and conceded when Peter prodded home from close range after the Blues defence failed to cut out a whipped centre. I believe that Patrick equalised very shortly afterwards and at this stage first Chris and then Tony had to go off injured. 

The Yellows opted to bring on a pair of young ringers at this point, with the two boys alternating, which is never great for the team they’re on. I think it’s fair to say that one of them was better than the other, with the young black lad being a bit better with his feet but far too small to make an impact against a group of middle aged leviathans. In fact, their collective major contribution was to win a free-kick after Mario accidentally clipped one of their ankles.

Despite all of the chopping and changing, the late arrivals, the non-arrivals and the young ringers, we actually had a pretty decent game that ended up all square. I know that I let in two goals during my stint in nets, with one finish coming from either Mick or Peter after I was left unsighted from a cross from the left and the next coming from the young ringer after I’d not got out quickly enough to close down a Yellow attack. 

Simon Gas then took his turn in goals and kept the Blues in it with a string of superlative saves, chiefly from Peter – one triple save had the tall financier gripping his head in disbelief as Simon got something to all three efforts, all of which were travelling at his customary Mach 3 velocity, with the final one coming off the post and thence to safety. Simon was eventually beaten on his near post from yet another ferocious attempt from Peter, which made it 5-4 to the Yellows. 

At the other end Mario, Ross and Patrick were enjoying one another’s company in the manner of three Edwardian school chums out on a Summer’s bicycle ride and were able to drag the Blues back into things; I think Patrick got at least three of the goals, but Mario was there or thereabouts and Ross had a tremendous chance toward the end after Patrick squared to him, but Steve managed to get out and smother his effort. 

Simon, Danny and Nick were (just) able to repel the increasingly ferocious attacking from Yev, Mick and Peter and it ended up with both teams leaving the field with their chins up as the final score was five apiece.

And thus to the pub, in mine and Steve’s case via Yev’s chauffeuring. This week’s various conversations are perhaps best summed as ‘The Trouble with Wives’, or maybe ‘Men and Women’, which is probably less sexist. (But in the sort-of words of Nigel Tufnell, ‘what’s wrong with being sex(y)ist’?) 

And as Oscar Wilde said, women are not meant to be understood; they’re meant to be loved. And he should have known. Ahem.   

Amnesiac

Hello and welcome back to what is rapidly becoming an occasional series of whimsical reflections on the comings and goings of a group of men in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties gamely trying to play football on a Friday night in central London, with wildly varying degrees of success.

I think that I’ve missed two match reports and three games, one of which I wasn’t playing in, and all that remains of them are slightly forlorn looking scraps of paper that relate who was playing. Memory can be capricious at the best of time, but I’m blaming my apparent amnesia on Simon blowing the footballs up too hard – a recent piece of research confirms that repeated heading can lead to memory loss. Patrick and Peter should beware their great height and aerial prowess; it may be that in ten years’ time they’ll be wandering around the foyer of the Renoir Cinema in the Brunswick Centre in a fugue-state of confusion, aimlessly looking for a Muswell Hill-based gentlemen in a linen suit.

I’m aware that since I last posted anything Liam has been Aitoned – Steve took not one but two swingeing attempts at his getting his man and duly succeeded in knacking Liam’s ankle ligaments, but not before the wee will ‘o’ the wisp had succeeded in scoring his usual brace of goals. And I think this was the same evening that Bristol Paul spent the majority of the evening in the company of a much younger lady in the Skinners, whose virtue I had the temerity to question when next I saw him.

The game two weeks ago was memorable chiefly because it ended in a draw, which always sticks in my head as it tends to prove that my team selection worked. (This despite a late withdrawal from Ian Baggies and Ian Gooner playing very gamely with a stinking cold).

Before my memory clouds over once again, let me report on what I can from last Friday’s game. At around 1.15 pm that afternoon I stooped to put down an empty mug of tea on my desk and suffered an alarming spasm in my lower back that felt as if some malevolent sprite was holding a match to my spinal column. I decided to take 400 mg of Ibuprofen and hope for the best and duly picked the following two teams to do battle –

Yellows: me, Ross, Patrick, Joseph, Simon Ink, Tom, Nick and Mario

Blues: Simon Gas, Yev, Peter, Michele, Mark, Geoff, Mick and Alan

No fewer than three players rocked up late, (Yev, Peter and Joseph) – NB: not Geoff – so the game began in slightly farcical circumstances, with seven playing six. Despite not being able to do much other than count the players and jog in a straight line, I meandered around the pitch while Ross started in goal for the Yellows and there was a quick exchange of goals as we waited for the full complement to arrive, (Patrick and Peter doing the damage, I believe).

At this stage I then decided to take over in goal from Ross: cue disaster. I duly conceded three goals in probably a little less time than Arsenal managed to ship against Bayern in midweek. The first was comfortably the worst, as I raced out of goal to try and bast the ball back upfield as Michele bore down, delivered an air kick and saw the ball bounce apologetically into an empty net. “Wow”, said Yev. Wow, indeed. Peter then advanced towards me and as I came out to try and narrow the angle and he deftly lobbed it over my head to make it 3-1 to the Blues. Goal number four arrived about a minute later; Alan had yet another one-on-one and despite saving the initial shot my aching back prevented any meaningful attempt at a recovery save and Michele pounced on the rebound.

I then accepted what I should have recognised about five hours earlier, i.e. that I was in no fit state to run, jump, turn or perform any of the other gross motor movements which are necessary to play football and left the field of play. Yev took my bib to make it eight v seven in favour of the Yellows, but as I sat on the edge of the pitch the Blues scored twice more. I then went off for a shower.

As I returned ten minutes later to drop the key back into Simon Gas’ ballbag (cough), I saw Patrick score one, with someone else reducing the arrears a minute or so later. Evidently, the final score was Yellows 6 Blues 8, which is a moral victory considering the plight of their start. And apparently I wasn’t the only casualty on the night, as Michele was also forced to depart, albeit with the somewhat more manly injury of knee ligament damage. Props go to Simon Ink, who evidently bagged a hat-trick on the night, and also to the other usual goalscoring suspects, i.e. Michele, Patrick and Peter.

Given that I couldn’t file much of a match report, I decided to head to the pub. There, I was joined by Mick and Patrick, followed by Yev, Alan, Simon Gas, Geoff, Nick, Ross and Mark. Topics under discussion were many and varied and included: Nick and myself concluding that Tom looks, plays and sounds exactly like a chirpy Australian wicketkeeper in the manner of an Ian Healy or Brad Haddin; the potential next manager at Arsenal; a proposed trip to Kiev next Summer, with Vitaliy as putative travel agent. Don’t pretend that you’ve not been warned.

Hopefully the next blog won’t be as long, but much depends on the progress of my problematic lower back.