Hello and welcome back to what has sadly become more of a
monthly round-up of events from the world of Coram Fields Friday night
football.
The last time I wrote anything was before Christmas; since
then we’ve had three games, two of which I was present at, the much-vaunted
Christmas outing to the Comedy Store (of which more anon), the big day itself (i.e.
25th December) and the start of yet another New Year.
My principal recollections of the final game of 2017 was of
a lively three-all draw in which I turned Assistant-in-Chief and indirectly or
directly set up all three goals for whichever team I was representing on the
night, playing the role of a middle aged, bald Mesut Ozil. David opened the
scoring, if memory serves, with a speculative effort that foxed all and sundry,
including the goalkeeper; the second was nodded in by Liam after I eschewed a
pass to Tony (much to his chagrin) and clipped the ball to the far post, while
the final goal came from a corner that was gobbled up by that most voracious of
strikers, Andy. No idea about the three goals on the other team, but well done
to whoever scored them.
That match formed a prelude to the annual Coram Fields
Christmas jamboree, which saw Danny lead an evening of high jinks and big
laughs at the Comedy Store. I’m relying on second hand reports here because
they went to the late session – well past my bedtime – but it would seem that
in addition to Paul being asked to leave the venue owing to a bout of
narcolepsy, Ian Gooner was embroiled in some good natured repartee with one of
the acts. Highly uncharacteristic of Ian to pipe up during the show, I’m sure
we’d all agree.
I missed the first game back after the break as I was still
away, but it sounded like a decent turn out for the inaugural match of 2018
from what I’ve heard, which brings us on to last Friday’s game.
Here are your two teams:
Blues – Ian Baggies, Nick, Bristol Paul, Simon Gas, James,
Mick, Peter, Ross and Mario
Yellows – me, Ian Gooner, Simon Ink, Steve, Joe, Danny,
Patrick, David and Liam
That’s nine players each and, wonder of wonders, virtually
everyone was on the pitch at the start. Hopefully we can have more of the same
this year.
We then had a lively and close-fought contest, (although the
final score belies that somewhat). I think that Liam got the goalscoring
underway with a typically adroit piece of footwork and a calm dispatch, but the
Blues were back on terms before the end of Danny’s tenure in goal, with either
Ross or Mario passing home following a forceful charge through midfield from
Peter.
The story of the game was that despite boasting an array of
potent attacking options, the Blues were possibly a little too weak defensively,
although Simon Gas pulled off one spectacular save which was impressive enough
for him to apply the sobriquet ‘Cat’ to himself, (Ian opined that ‘Bagpuss’
would have been more appropriate). Similarly, later in the game James denied
Liam and Patrick with some stupendous goalkeeping work.
By this stage the Yellow team had taken a lead, with Liam
being the principal tormentor – the Yellow’s fourth goal was a great team move
that involved me, Ian, Patrick before Liam applied the coup de grace. The Blue
team did get one more goal, the specifics of which elude me, I’m afraid (did
Nick score?), but it had started to turn into one of those nights for the Blues
by the end, with shots coming back off posts and a combination of great
goalkeeping from Simon Ink and wayward finishing proving costly.
I, of all people, managed to get the final goal, as Patrick
glided through what remained of the Blues’ defence and generously side-footed
the ball to me, whereupon I dug out a spinning left-footed shot that managed to
evade Peter’s attempt at a save owing a) to the top spin on it and b) the fact that,
frankly, it could have gone anywhere.
Final score: Yellows 5 – Blues 2
Onto the pub then.
In amongst the catching up of one
another’s Christmas and New Year holidays, we had the usual post-match discussions,
which included some potted histories of various Old Street / Coram Fields
characters, before Ian Gooner gave David and myself what might be best termed a
management workshop on how to make team work and office life in general more
interesting, with some extraordinary vignettes of how to use calendars and team
meetings in what we might term an innovative way, (the idea of making everyone
wear a Moeen Ali mask during an operational catch-up was particularly
inspired). David and I were trying to persuade him to jack in the day job and
set himself up as a somewhat leftfield consultancy agent advising management
stooges on how to motivate staff via childhood regression techniques and
esoteric meeting titles. Something along the lines of ‘Managing: Punk (Ian’s)
Surprising Solutions (PISS).
I’m away on Friday, so your next match report will follow in
around two weeks’ time.
