A golden night

Another eventful night to report back on, with plenty of goals, gaffes and great celebrations. With Peter being a late withdrawal from proceedings, the two teams – which were perfectly balanced – were thrown out of kilter. Was it ever any different?

Here are your teams:

Yellows: Steve, Bristol Paul, me, Bert, Ed, Joe, Mario, Tony, Ian Gooner

Blues: Simon Gas, Simon Ink, Liam, Danny, Alan, James, Sebastian, Tannero, Yev

The game started much as it ended; with Sebastian hammering the ball not so much past Ed, our specialist ‘keeper, lest we forget, as through him in what became something of a motif for the game. This prompted some changes – Ed came out of goal and I went in – before Sebastian’s second saw a rejigging of the teams, (to little effect), with Ed and Yev swapping sides:

Yellows: Steve, Bristol Paul, me, Bert, Yev, Joe, Mario, Tony, Ian Gooner

Blues: Simon Gas, Simon Ink, Liam, Danny, Alan, James, Sebastian, Tannero, Ed

A word on the sides here; before the game was more than a few minutes old Alan was complaining that they weren’t fair because the Blue team didn’t have enough defenders – frankly, they didn’t need any – before Tony then opined that the Yellow team did not have enough strikers, hence the move to provide the Yellows with Yev, despite already having the not inconsiderable striking talent of Mario.

Never mind. Sebastian’s second, from memory, was from a tight angle whereupon the young Colombian maestro placed the ball with the outside of his boot into the top corner of the far post as he hoved in on goal. His next strike was from the other side of the area. With your correspondent still in nets, I stationed myself flush against the near post to prevent the ball from sneaking in, whereupon the South American elected to thrash the ball so hard that all I was able to sense was a breeze around my knees as the ball hurtled into the back of the net. 3-0 to the Blues.

This was the stage when Yev came over to join the Yellows, but Tony soon pegged the score back with a lofted shot direct from the restart that caught out James (?) in goal. 3-1. Thereafter, things become a bit blurry.

Two scruffy goals – one for each side – followed, with Steve closing down the otherwise immaculate Sebastian and forcing the ball in from close range. Next came arguably the moment of the night, as Tony responded to a call from Bert in goal by banging the ball blindly back toward his own goal and into the back of the net. Somehow, it was everyone else’s fault for talking.

Mario also scored direct from the restart, but by this stage the Yellows were hopelessly behind and Sebastian completed his own scoring by deftly dropping a shoulder, weaving inside and lining up yet another howitzer of a shot that would have probably taken Bert out in goal had he got anywhere near it. Speaking of which, the one passage in play during which Sebastian was in anyway subdued was when Bert fouled him from behind. Instructive, perhaps.

Final score: Sebastian 6 (7?) – Yellows 3

To the pub! Plenty to report on from the Skinners this week. Ian and I, of all people, were approached by a random punter and asked if we were Tottenham season ticket holders: fighting talk, I’d say. When we said no, but we knew a man who was, we realised that Tony had already left for the evening, presumably because we were talking too much, so Ian offered to keep the auteur’s Tottenham wristband safe until this Friday. You can see for yourself what happened next:

Onto happier things now, with Steve celebrating his half century in fine style. Ian demonstrated his inimitable largesse by procuring the sometime Scotsman with a bevy of age appropriate gifts, including: a Bells whisky miniature; a packet of shortbread; a tin of corned beef; a tube of superglue; some Vaseline (make the connection yourselves) and finally a postcard from the Queen to mark fifty years before he gets his telegram. (I should have been on the generation game).

And it would be remiss of me not to relay, gentle reader, that our dear leader, the Muswell Hillbilly himself, spent a not inconsiderable amount of time making the acquaintance of a delightful young lady named Elizabeth (from Huddersfield) and, it would seem, getting her phone number. More news as it comes.

Until Friday… 

Are you playing Manchester City?

Blog number two of the 2018/19 campaign coming up now, with two very different fixtures to report on. Friday 12^th October saw a poor game blighted by tardiness and other personnel issues that resulted in a one-sided gubbing. For the record, here were the two teams:

Yellows: Danny, Bristol Paul, Patrick C, me, Andy, Mario, Nick and Patrick (K)

Blues: Paul, Simon Gas, James, Ian Gooner, Yev, Mick, Peter and Joe

I believe that Yev ended up playing for the Yellow team because Peter and Joe were both late and were given Patrick C to compensate and the whole thing was very unsatisfactory with a final score of around 6-1. Mario and Patrick always make a potent strike force and it all got a bit much.

Conversely, last Friday’s game was, by happy common consent, one of our best for some time. There was a bizarre moment just before the game when a bloke walked in to the changing rooms with a wry grin and asked if we were about to play Manchester City; thankfully, the answer was ‘no’, although I reckon we’d have a chance if we deployed Steve as Raheem Sterling’s marker (not really). I think he was confusing us with one of the league teams that plays in a recognised team’s colours, but perhaps the question inspired us to raise the standard of play from the norm.

Here are your teams:

Yellows: Paul, Bert, James, me, Sebastian (James’ cousin), Charlie, Tony, Liam and Simon Gas

Blues: David, Joe, Ed, Shez, Peter, Danny and Yev

Joe’s late arrival owing to problems on the tube meant that he joined the Blue team, even though he was supposed to be a Yellow, leading Simon Gas to selflessly change bibs and join the Yellows, who had the weaker line-up. It shows the fine margins we live with really, because had he not done so it would be a one-sided riot of the game, but happily it was all right on the night.

A word about Sebastian, first – we’d first assumed that given the posh moniker some floppy haired fop would turn up clutching a teddy bear, but Sebastian turned out to be a fleet-footed Colombian dynamo, recycling possession and driving into pockets of space to free up his team-mates. How wrong we were!

The Blue team prevailed by three goals to one, (so, a relatively low scoring game). Their first arrived after a ball eluded all Yellows defenders and arrived at the back post for someone to steer past James; the second was an absolute gift / howler from me, as I attempted to take a backpass from Simon Gas on my instep and ping it wide to the full back on the right side of defence, but succeeded in merely pushing the ball straight to Yev who tapped into an open goal from about five yards; the third and final goal of the game was a good finish from young Ed who nipped in ahead of the keeper and squeezed the ball in from an acute angle.

All that aside, the Yellows had plenty of possession and pinged the ball around with what at times could be genuinely described as panache, with Bert and Tony making the ball do all the work at the back and James linking up well with his cousin in midfield, neither of whom deserved to lose. A bit of a thin game for Liam, who was feeding on scraps for all the Yellow possession, although he did get on the scoresheet following an uncharacteristic brain fade from Joe.

Immediately prior to Ed’s winning goal I took a corner that got cleared back out wide, so I smashed it hopefully back into the middle of the area and it fell to Sebastian who unleashed a venomous volley that careered back of the post and that just about summed up the Yellow performance. Well done to the Blues, who mopped up the pressure well and took their chances. And well done to Yev, who not only washed the bibs, but arrived early. Fancy that.

Mercifully, there was relatively little drama to mar proceedings and a game well worth eight quid.

Onto the pub, where just a few of us made it past half eight – Yev, me, Tony, Simon Gas and Paul. 

Topics under discussion included Tottenham’s new stadium and Harvey Weinstein before the evening became an impromptu smartphone workshop as we struggled and failed to download WhatsApp onto Paul’s phone.

See you Friday…

In the wolf's mouth

Welcome, one and all, to what is becoming an occasional look at events from Coram Fields on a Friday night. This is the first post of the new season and we’re well into October, so I trust that everyone had a great Summer, heatwave and World Cup fever now being a distant memory.

I’ve only played two of the five games of the new season, but felt moved to write following the departure of a genuine Coram Fields legend, albeit a very unassuming one - Michele. A box-to-box tour de force, not afraid to get stuck in, although with the steel comes a silky élan and a keen eye for goal. If I was being reductive I’d say that this mixture of gritty determination and ball-playing panache reflects his mixed Irish and Italian heritage, but it probably isn’t so I won’t. Despite the fact some of our number have never quite the hang of his name (hint: not Michaela), he’ll live long in the memory and hopefully he’ll join the pantheon of former players occasionally stopping by to roll back the years and join us on-stage for the odd encore.

I learnt something new courtesy of Adolfo’s valedictory message to Michele: “in bocca al lupo per lupo” got my interest pricked as I know that ‘bocca’ means mouth in Romance languages and lupo must be something to do with wolves. And so it turns out – this Italian phrase translates as something like ‘break a leg’, but literally means “in the wolf’s mouth”. Fancy that.

This greeting was delivered via the most notable development at Friday night football since the change to the overhead rule – the new WhatsApp group. Our dear leader has not so much embraced the twenty-first century as given it a cursory nod and a crisp handshake and created a new forum in which Ian can post vaguely not suitable for work images and for people to mute notifications for eight hours every Monday morning after they’ve confirmed their participation for the following week’s game.

Right, that’s more than 300 words without any mention of football.

I still have the teams for the second week of the new campaign, which are scribbled onto a piece of paper, Neville Chamberlain style. Here you go:

Yellows: Liam, Steve, Stu (congratulations), Bert, Joe, Peter, James, Mark and Ian Baggies

Blues: Yev (late), Danny, Shez, Simon Gas, Patrick, Michele, Josh, Bristol Paul, me

Lord knows what happened that night, but I think it was a fairly decent game, despite the odd late arrival. I have a memory of Patrick running amok and possibly setting up the much-lamented Michele, but really, it’s a bit of a blur.

I’ve mislaid the team news from the following week’s game, but the entire game descended into farce as a couple of players arrived late and there was a definite perception that one team was stronger than the other, with the effect that one team did indeed become stronger than the other and rather ran away with things, even though it was an evenly fought contest for the opening twenty minutes or so. Tony, I think it’s fair to say, was distinctly unimpressed.

I haven’t been around for the past fortnight, so I can only hope that you’ve been able to enjoy two more keenly contested games in that time and without all the hullabaloo.

See you Friday and cheerio Michele.