Christmas chaat

Seasonal felicitations, football friends!

It has been a quite the eventful few months since we returned to action in the Summer. 

Way back in September we saw Ian Geary hang up his boots once and for all, presumably to give his lungs a rest from the invasive plane spores that might otherwise have done for him. We miss him and wish him well.

More recently, we have seen James depart for pastures French, along with his (very) heavily pregnant wife, for a new life away from teaching oiks in Grays.

And I think it was this season that saw Tony take a lengthy hiatus away from the fray, presumably to help the Brexit negotiations, with the pressure now very much on to Get It Done.

We also had the memorable bonfire night game, which saw the ‘orrible little scotes who often loiter around Coram Fields aim at fireworks at us... from the opposite pitch. The hopeless and hapless Security guard that evening was as much use as the proverbial ashtray on a motorbike and ended up copping us much abuse off Mick and Ian as the little sods who were aiming rockets at our goalkeepers. It was like being at the Bosporus derby.  

In terms of match reports, obviously they’ve been a bit thin on the ground of late, and by ‘of late’ I mean all season. Sorry about that. I won’t make excuses. 

Last Friday saw an eight aside pre-Christmas match in which our ranks were swollen by not one, not two, but three interlopers / invitation players from an otherwise very sparse looking Coram Fields. Given that we only had 13 players of our own – as on the 6^th December, when we ended up with two ringers, one a decent player in his mid-twenties, the other a child who left halfway through to come in for his tea – we are very grateful for their efforts, although as ever with ringers you never have much of an idea as to their relative ability bar reductive assumptions based on age and girth.

The Yellows ran out 8-3 winners: their playing staff comprised myself, Parminder, Mick, Johnnie, Stan and Peter, as well what proved to be two very decent players from the earlier game. The Blues were made up of David, Andy, Steve, Danny, Johannes (JoJo), who was struggling with a hamstring twang, Patrick (NB: all three Kavanaghs present) and a fella called (I think), Roy. Among the goals were Peter, who smashed home into the top near post with characteristic violence, Stan, who also scored from a tight angle, and me, courtesy of an ugly toe-poke. On target for the Blues were Patrick (twice; one beating the keeper* on his near post and once bungling the ball under the falling goalie*) and Steve, via a post-corner melee. 

*(Me).

And from there onto the New Delis restaurant for a pre-Christmas curry and a belated celebration of Simon’s sixtieth. 

As we lurch towards Christmas and another heart-stopping pork extravaganza at the Skinners let us be grateful of another year of health, happiness and football. Lord knows there’s enough other shit going on the world. I’ll leave you with a photo-story of the first few months of 2019/2020.

Holliday in the Sun..(memories of an English Summer)

Greetings, compadres. It is now some weeks since our last game of the season at Coram Fields and I have not posted any match reports or blogs to mark the curtain falling on 2018/19; a season with its highs, lows, flouncing, moaning, late arrivals, guest appearances (Sam! Ross!) and fond farewells (Stu!), as well as Frank Sinatra / Status Quo-style ‘goodbyes’, i.e. not goodbyes at all (Andy! Tony!).

As I look out at a Dreadnought-grey sky and with the second Ashes test at Lord’s not taking place owing to weather more akin to March or November than high August, I’ve decided it is high time to at least capture the final stramash of the season. 

Here are my contemporaneous notes:

Blues 5 - Yellows 2

Blues: Alan, me, Joe, Steve, Tom, Ben, Pete, Ross and bloke called Richard Felton

Yellows: Bristol Paul, Parminder, Patrick Chen, Charlie, Mick, Harry, Stan, Ian Gooner

Blue Goals: Alan x 3 (one stuffy cross-cum-shot that crept in the near post with thingymajig from Morgan Stanley in goal; one sublime lob over Ian and one near post effort after Ian parried in his initial shot); Harry drilled in following good work on the left; A N other.

Yellow goals: trademark bullet header from Pete from an outswinging corner from Tom; another rifled effort following a decent passage of play. 

Make of that what you will. Alan’s terrific hat-trick was the take-away, stand-out memory of the game, with the lobbed goal still instantly memorable even now. I think I was in goal when Pete swooped down from the clouds to nod the ball in, as similarly, I can still recall that.

From there it was off to the pub for all the usual nonsense. Ross, a rare visitor to these shores in the Summer months when he migrates from the chilly Norwegian peninsular he now calls home, was disappointed to finish without a goal to mark his return home.

I’ve been thinking about the match reports over the past couple of days and I don’t see any reason that they should cease over the Summer, as they only have the most tenuous link to the actual game anyway. So here’s one for you – feel free to re-read in the depths of February when you’re looking for something to occupy yourself with.

Blues: Len Shackleton, Ernest Shackleton, Tony, Captain Oates, Alan, Danny, Simon Gas, Simon Ink

Yellows: Doc Holliday, me, Thomas Cromwell, Ian Gooner, Mick, Limahl, Yev, Steve

Play got underway with the Yellows a player short owing to Yev being late. The Blues sought to take full advantage and swiftly took the lead after the mercurial Len Shackleton dibbled his way through the Yellows’ defence and squared for his heroic namesake to nod home from three yards, despite being hobbled with acute frostbite.

The Yellows equalised after Ian Gooner harried Danny into conceding a corner; I pinged in a delicious centre that saw Steve fizz home, but only after clearing out Captain Oates. Tony promptly lost his temper and demanded that the goal be disallowed and a free kick awarded to the Blue team. But play was suspended after Captain Oates declared he was too injured to continue and asked for the key to the changing rooms. He promised to bring it back, but said that this may take some time.

Meanwhile, Alan stabbed home to make it 2-1 to the Blues after Thomas Cromwell was caught napping in defence, before Danny make it 3-1 after some good work from Simon Ink on the left. 

The Blues could have wrapped things up there and then as a clearly angry Cromwell scythed down Len Shackleton. Literally. However, Tony was guilty of a rare failure from the penalty spot courtesy of a fine save from Limahl, who leapt photogenically to this left and pushed the ball around the post, before the Yellows got one back. Yev had arrived just after Captain Oates had left and swapped passes with Doc Holliday, who may have taken some performance enhancing laudanum, before calmly slamming the ball into the bottom corner. Given Holliday’s glassy-eyed appearance, Tony was once again aggrieved that justice had not been done and challenged Doc to meet him at sundown the next day.

Final score: Blues 3 – Yellows 2

Simon Gas is still looking for his key and Tony hasn’t been since. Neither has Captain Oates.

See you next month.

Match report

Last Friday’s game saw us with just seven players aside, including the roving Merv, leading Simon Gas to recruit two ringers from one of the other games that concluded at seven ‘o’ clock. This resulted in the following two teams:

Yellow: Ian Baggies, Bert (welcome back!), Merv, Simon Ink, Tony, Joe and Alan

Blues: me, Simon Gas, Kanat, Bristol Paul, Mick, Ramone and Johnny

The two extras were a chap called Dean, who has ploughed a furrow with us before, and a young fella whose name I didn’t catch. When Merv withdrew with a hamstring injury after 15 minutes or so he was replaced with a young lad who was all of around five foot and at this point the teams were arguably unbalanced, although it is always a suspicion of mine that some of the young ringers that join us on occasions like this are playing somewhat within themselves.

Onto the goals, then. Mick capped what was unquestionably a man of the match performance with four goals, (albeit one of them was possibly an own goal from Ian Baggies, who also had the misfortune to put through his own net to start the scoring). The pick of Mick’s super-plus hat-trick was a tight angle finish from wide on the right that caught out both the keeper and the last defender and a lovely lofted pass into the top right hand corer that was reminiscent of an Andrea Pirlo or Andres Iniesta. Ole! 

But the Blues didn’t have it all their own way and the Yellows managed three goals (?) with both Tony and Joe making their mark, the former pouncing on some loose work in midfield to drive unerringly into the bottom corner. Ultimately, the calibre of the Blues’ random selection (Dean) was, in tandem with Ramone’s ceaseless running and ball-recycling, too much for the Yellows who gamely endeavoured to try and make a game of it. Simon Gas switched with the diminutive winger for the final 15 minutes or so, but it made no difference whatsoever. 

Final score: Blues 6 Yellows 3

No pub for me this week as I had a child’s birthday party to prepare for; I’m off for a couple of weeks, so see you all on 21^st June.