Stick that in your blog

Last Friday’s game was a nine aside affair (for some of the time, at least), with the following two teams:

Blues: Tony, me, Joe, Charlie, Yev (eventually), Bristol Paul, Johannes, Simon Gas, Kanat

Yellows: Danny, Geoff, Steve, Mick, Mario, Parminder, Alan, Merv, Pete

Seeing as the Yellows had a man advantage for the lion’s share of proceedings – Yev was about twenty-five minutes late, while Tony departed with around twenty-five minutes remaining (more of which anon) – the Blues did well to be as competitive as they were. 

The game all turned with a finely taken goal from someone Simon refers to as ‘Merv football talent’: high praise indeed. The aforementioned ringer stormed down the left in swashbuckling style before spotting Tony violently hawking pollen spores into the back of the net and smashed the ball with the outside of his foot whereupon it pinged into the bottom far corner. A great finish, but I think it’s fair to say that Tony found the whole thing somewhat unsporting, presumably as he thought that the Yellows should have stopped playing, and promptly left the field in a cloud of tree pollen and four letter epithets for his opponents. 

Thereafter the Blues were once more a man deficient, as they had been for the time it took Yev to arrive and get changed in the goals. For the record, I took Tony’s place in nets, sporting one orange glove on my left hand like a very shabby Michael Jackson impersonator. 

As for the other goals, Steve capped a characteristically robust performance with a decent finish that culminated a fine Yellows move down the left. The Blues were on the scoresheet twice, much to Mick’s chagrin (he spent the majority of the game being extremely voluble to his teammates) – I believe that Johannes, the stand out player on the pitch, got one of them.

Final score: Yellows 3 – Blues 2

Clearly, this is the first blog for some time. I am not going to apologise out of deference to you and your intelligence, dear reader, but I have thought of a way of ensuring more regular reports: in short, a reporter’s notebook to scribble down the goal scorers and result, as well as any notable incidents. Armed with the salient points from each match, I should have more ammunition to fuel my whimsy when time allows to get down a summary of the action. 

So watch this space.

Generally, there have been some decent games of late, with the game on the 10^th May finishing six apiece (Mick’s suggested title being ‘Six of one, half a dozen of another’). I think it’s fair to say that Tony hasn’t been alone in suffering from the effects of the moulting plane trees in Coram Fields; I was sure that we’d need to administer the Last Rites to Ian Baggies the other week, as he seemed in danger of suffering a prolapsed lung such was the force of his coughing. 

We have acquired a couple of new players to help bolster the numbers: a chap called Carlo, who Mario met in the gym, and a young man called Ramone (that’s his first name, not Joey or Dee-Dee).

Lastly, it behoves me to report a rare sighting of the lesser spotted Spizz in April. Simon Gas and I were leaving the Skinners at the relatively early time of 9.30 pm on an unusually quiet evening in the pub where just a handful of us had repaired for some post-football refreshment. As we pottered down toward the Euston Road a wraith-like figure emerged out of the misty gloom clad in a black PVC and wielding a clutch of flyers. Yes, the great man is back in action on June 22^nd at Camden’s Dublin Castle – I’ve upload the flyer as proof. And with punk icon Jordan, no less.

See you down the front.