Following a fortnight’s hiatus, partly due to the big freeze
that never was, I returned to the fray on Friday and selected the two following
teams:
Yellows: me, Kanat, James, Simon Ink, Bristol Paul, Tony,
Joe and Mario
Blues: Ian Gooner, Danny, Nick, David, Simon Gas, Mick, Ed
and Yev
Eight aside and a pretty much a full house from the off,
which makes a pleasant change.
An already greasy pitch was made positively slick by a sharp
shower just after kick off, with the result that the surface played extremely
quickly. A slight tap to a team-mate required very soft feet or the ball would
career beyond the white line and into the next postal district. Just as well
we’re such a deftly footed bunch then, eh?
A very low scoring game this one, despite the surface being
wetter than an otter’s pocket and there being plenty of space on the park to
let rip speculative efforts from distance. Simon Ink was in goals for the
Yellows for much of the game which may explain why they kept a clean sheet for
around 50 minutes, while the prodigal Danny (welcome back), Nick and David did
most of the keeping for the Blues.
The most notable element to proceedings was what the
prevalence of what the cricket fraternity would refer to as “chirp”, with Tony,
Danny and Mick providing enough dialogue (and enough robust Anglo-Saxon) to
form a lost Harold Pinter script, as David sagely observed at full-time.
Happily, there were few contentions decisions in terms of the outcome and it
all made for an enjoyable game, despite the fact both teams struggled to string
more than three passes together.
Just the two goals to report; I believe Mario bagged the
opener for the Yellows, before Yev turned back the clock to provide a splendid
example of speed and dribbling before firing the ball home for a relatively
late equaliser for the Blues.
Final score: Yellows 1 – Blues 1
To the pub then, for one of those evenings which make me
very pleased to part of the Coram Fields contingent. Among the luminaries under
discussion, in no particular order, were: Max Weber, Niall Ferguson, Daniel
Levy, Éamon de Valera, David Baddiel and Charles Haughey. This was with
reference to items such as the European Union, the history of the Republic of
Ireland from independence onwards, Tottenham’s new ground (wot
no fromagerie?!), the Protestant work ethic and, obviously, football. You
couldn’t buy that mix of high brow and working man’s culture. And all topped
off with a semi-flirty, semi-aggressive interjection from a young woman with a
stupendous cleavage.
Come to think of it, David’s comment about Harold Pinter was
very apt.
