The pulsating 5-5 draw revisited!!

In a bid to bring some order to a group of headless chickens, Gashead Simon had invested in a whistle, which he used to good effect so as to call time on the guys playing before us. These two teams really knew how to play football, long raking passes, tracking back and no agricultural tackles while goal mouth chances were clinically dispatched. When we came on the Blues v the Different Shirts, there was shocking stuff played amongst some good things. Gashead Simon seemed to go through a spell of attempting laser-precision passes down the left wing and failing. However, his general play was represented as usual by a steely determination not to lose a tackle.

Gashead Simon was playing on the Different Shirts side, which comprised of Gashead Paul, me the Guv'nor,
Phil B. Phil the Goalie, Alex, and Nick. While the Blues had Mick K., Liam, Danny, Ian G, Alan Morg and one other. I can't remember the full teams but the Blues had one less and were the moral victors coming back from 3-1 down to gain an advantage of 5-3 before Alex and Nick dragged us back into the game to equalise. We nearly won it when a rasping shot from Alex clipped the post. He was our best player with Gashead Paul brilliant in defence. Paul made an amazing recovery to stop Liam scoring. The Celtic supporter  won the first ever penalty I have seen at Coram Fields after being dragged down by Phil the Goalie. This might have been a straight red in real football. Liam dispatched the ball clinically but it went through the net and climbed over the fence into the playground next door.

Liam and Mick K. were the star players for the Blues, who were augmented at the end by a late-running Yev, who has started a new job in the City. He scored a late goal, which was chalked off since the Coram Fields Centre had called time for us to come off the pitch. This deprived Gashead Simon of using his new whistle.

Phil B.scored a wonder goal dribbling along the touchline for the Different Shirts and his curvy corners are a wonder to behold. Although the Blues, I think, got an easy breakaway goal from one of them. Mick K. says that the most likely result from a corner is a goal the opposite end.

It was a shame we missed Spizz but the Bristol connection was in play with Paul and Simon, Gasheads both.
Danny and Alan Morg played a defensive role for the Blues. Obviously, the next match report will be better marked by a return of the peerless prose of Gooner Simon.

Spizz missed the match preparing for his gig in Bristol.

A pulsating 5-5 draw last Friday at Coram Fields was missed by Spizz, who was preparing for his band's gig in Bristol the following night. Spizz and co have been writing some new material, which I think sounds pretty good.

Tales from the Fireside

This week’s blog comes to you through a fug of snot, tissues and empty sachets of Lemsip so apologies in advance for any errors in accuracy, grammar or typography.

Last Friday’s match was a well fought 4-4 draw. Through the fog of my man ‘flu symptoms I believe that the two teams were as follows:

Bibs – me, David, Alex, Steve, Yev, Andy, a new bloke called Arran (?), Spizz, Mark, Ross 

Colours – Simon Gas, Paul, Danny, Dan, Ian, Nick (beard), Liam, old(er) Phil, specialist goalkeeper Phil

The Bibs tore into a three goal lead – the first two goals coming from Mark, who was cutting in from the wide left to great effect and the third coming from Alex who found himself about two yards out following some slick interplay between himself and Yev. Danny had gone close earlier, uncharacteristically missing a free header, but all looked set fair for the Bibs.

Dan, however, had other ideas. Chiefly through his supreme efforts in midfield he dragged the Colours level, with one of his goals coming from a lung bursting run down the left where he squeezed a shot in between the last defender (me) and the goalkeeper’s near post. 

Another outing for mercurial new wave icon Spizz, although the shock-haired rock front man was a little off the pace this week, contriving to miss a number of chances that he would usually tuck away with what they used to call ‘great aplomb’, including one gilt-edged header which bobbled wide of the post from a centre by myself. The Friday night multitude seem to be coming to grips with the new head high rule and there were a number of headed efforts, one from Ian reminiscent of Steve Bould in his pomp as he gave it the eyebrows from a corner only to see the ball plop just over the bar. 

The Colours’ superb come back appeared complete when they took a four-three lead, only for Steve to restore parity with a driven shot that had him commentating on his own finishing. Four apiece it ended, although Simon Gas was accused of blowing up too soon to settle for a draw, much the chagrin of the Bibs in particular, who felt that momentum was on their side.  Probably the right result, in all honesty and as Simon remarked those playing on after the declaration of full-time were reminiscent of Japanese soldiers emerging from the jungles of South East Asia in the 1950’s still believing the war to be on. 

And so to the Skinners Arms where we managed to catch the back-end of the first half of the England game and the entire second half, which was the one with all the goals in. A reasonably good turn out this week, no doubt helped by the added incentive of the World Cup qualifier. Despite Ian’s misgivings about Roy Hodgson’s ability to select an attacking side I thought that picking Andros Townsend was a bold move and one that clearly paid off. The Scottish landlord’s Highland yell when Montenegro scored was soon silenced by England’s third goal. The most notable incident from the pub this week was my inadvertent theft of Ian’s pint – I’d bought a pint of something called Fireside which on reflection should have been thrown there, while Ian had ordered the altogether more palatable Haka. 

There’ll be more tasting notes from me in a couple of weeks as I am going to see former Smith’s guitarist Johnny Marr on Friday. Play up and play the game.  

The Blue Ninja

The nights are drawing in and the weeks are hurtling toward the inevitable onset of Winter, but the air around Coram Fields remains balmy and the turn out for each Friday night is as plentiful as the leaves starting to fall from the trees.

But enough of the pseudo-poetic Autumnal preamble and on with the football. This week Simon Gas once more pre-selected two teams, albeit featuring two teams both with himself in. A somewhat schizophrenic choice, you might say.

The aforementioned teams were as follows:

Bibs – me, Alex, Danny, Simon Ink, goalkeeping Phil, Paul, Ross, Kiwi Nick (eventually), Tony

Colours – Simon Gas, Steve, Andy, Kiwi Nick, old Phil, Alan, Liam, the even later than usual Yev, Paul’s mate Paul

For the first time in the 2013/14 season the game was won by the odd goal – the odd goal in seven, to be precise.

Alex scored the opener in typically swashbuckling fashion, beating three or four players before slamming the ball into the bottom right hand corner - a goal that he seems to score every week. Paul, who spent the majority of the game lurking quite literally in the shadows like a bespectacled, blue-bibbed ninja, got the Bibs’ second goal following Alex’s closing down of Andy in goal. The ball broke to the edge of the area where Paul suddenly materialised, wraith-like, and methodically larruped the ball home. 

On the score sheet for the Colours was Alan, clad in green and white hoops like his celtic (note the absence of a capital letter there) team-mate Liam, who was wearing a, err, Celtic shirt. (That’s why grammar matters, kids). One of his goals came via a blocked tackle that deflected in – Alan knows how his other finish came. 

With the scores level at three apiece, (©Tony Gubba), enter the beast from the east, Yev (initially in goal). As the Bibs’ legs were getting steadily heavier in the unseasonably muggy night air the prospect of the Colours having a man extra and that man being Yev prompted a rare moment of pragmatism and Kiwi Nick switched sides to help shore up the Bibs defence. The winning goal came from Simon Ink – 4-3 it finished, and we all trudged back to the upstairs deluxe changing rooms, complete with roaring radiator.

A veritable bumper crowd at the Skinners Arms this week, with topics under consideration including the moral vacuum that is FIFA and in particular the 2022 Qatar World Cup, mobile phone contracts, the woes of Sheffield United and lovebites. Nothing if not dull, eh?

Friday night takes to the skies

There could have been any number of titles for this week’s match report:  ‘Reach for the stars’; ‘Aerial bombardment’; ‘Simon gives us the heads up’ (actually that’s better than the one I went for); ‘Airborne means playing more’, etc. etc. 

But the key fact is this: as of Friday 27^th September 2013 the Coram Fields Football Association are playing football above head height - not just from corners, but from throw-ons (I know, I know), passes between players and hoofed clearances. The only concession to the ancien regime is that goalkeepers must still keep their throws and goalkicks under head height to prevent the games descending into a sort of Bobby Gould tribute act. 

Key to this decision was Simon’s understandable reluctance to spend ten minutes of every Friday evening being moaned out for making a judgement on whether or not a ball had passed over head height. When you consider that I am around 5 foot 7 (on a good day) and people like Ian are nearer 6 foot 5 you can understand why the over heads rule caused so much contention. But not any more.

So, rule changes aside, how did the game go, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. For a start, the mercurial post-punk legend and “Spike Milligan of Punk” (Paul Morley) made an all too rare appearance. He was part of the team that ended up on the wrong end of an 8-3 shellacking, although that doesn’t do the game justice. 

The two teams went as thus – 

Bibs:                 me, David, Alex, Ian West Brom, Phil, Spizz, Nick (beard), Simon Ink

Colours:           Simon Gas, Danny, Ian Arsenal, Yev, Liam, Andy, Ross, Steve, the prodigal Tony 

The more mathematically minded among you will have spotted that the Colours had a one man advantage – sadly, the majority of the players on the Bibs’ team can’t count. Thus, when the Colours took a 4-1 lead Simon Gas offered to give the Bibs another player (Andy, in this instance), only for the outraged Bibs to furiously refuse such a slight on their skill and work ethic. To be fair, I realised that we were a man short from the off, but such was the determination amongst the Bibs to get back on terms with the players we had that I went along with the consensus. That indignation at Simon Gas’s gentlemanly offer had much to do with the paucity of ‘defending’ that ushered in those four goals – no shape at the back, a man over (funny that) and some hara-kari style play that made it all too easy for the Bibs.

The real story of the game was that despite having a potent strike force in Spizz and Phil aside from the midfield tour de force that is Alex, there wasn’t enough legs in midfield for the Bibs to combat the combined merits of Danny-Liam-Steve-Ross and Tony, who combined youthful running with some finishing from Yev that wasn’t so much clinical, as akin to that of a vivisectionist.

And yet despite the final result the score stood at 4-3 for around twenty minutes. Although Spizz grabbed the opener with a characteristic finish which took him past the last defender and somewhat more scenically around the ‘keeper, he struggled to get any more, with Steve, Danny and Simon Gas all proving  too much for the admittedly reduced ranks of the Bibs to get through. Alex got one of his traditional Roy of the Rovers goals, beating everyone on the pitch before burying the ball unerringly in the corner, and I’m guessing that Phil got the other Bibs goal.

I think that Yev must have plundered at least five of the Colours efforts, nearly all of which came from the Colours making better use of the new overhead rule and getting the ball to him early and quickly. Which is a nice way of saying that he was goal hanging, something that even Spizz had the temerity to comment on, the pink teapot on his metaphorical football kit rapidly turning into the darkest shade of black. The one goal Yev scored that definitely did not come via goal hanging saw him receive the ball in midfield and accelerate past the hapless defender (me) to run  full pelt down the left and smash the ball past Alex at the near post. He was injured mind you, (Alex, not Yev), having been given a dead leg by Steve.

Ah, Steve. Despite this characteristically muscular intervention from the sometime Scotsman, Steve displayed admirable restraint in not launching the ball into the stratosphere every time danger lurked, much to the surprise of Ian, who had suggested a new measurement of distance, with one Aiton = one quarter of the pitch. Just one of his clearances measured more than two Aitons, although how Steve will respond if his team are leading by the odd goal with mere minutes left on the clock remains to be seen.

And so to the pub, where Liam, Spizz, Simon, me, Ian, Yev, Tony and Simon Ink all repaired. I spent most of the evening discussing all things Arsenal FC with Ian, which is a very pleasurable thing to do at the moment.  Not sure what everyone else talked about, but it may well have been the sultry American barmaid.

Until Friday...

Blue Friday

The second Friday of the new season saw significantly more agreeable weather conditions than the horrific monsoon which marked the inaugural game of the 2013-14 campaign. Simon Gas’s Summer clarion call to find new players continues to reap rewards as another bumper crop of amateur footballers took to the fray.

From memory there were 18 of us, lining up as follows

(New) Bibs: Simon Gas, Alex, Phil, Kiwi Nick, Alan, Steve, me, Tony, Andy

Colours (and one old Bib): Dan, Matt, Danny, goalkeeper Phil, bearded Nick, Ian, Mick, Geoff’s mate, Ross 

The chief talking point of Friday’s game was undoubtedly the debut of some spanking new blue bibs. These replace the doughty yellow efforts which I think it’s fair to say have seen some traffic over the years. New and sparkly the new Bibs may be, but for those of us who are colour blind they played havoc with our eyesight as several players on the opposing team took to the field wearing dark blue shirts, notably Geoff’s mate, who donned a Bristol Rovers kit for the evening. Actually, I’ve just proved my own point here, as the power of the interweb tells me that Rovers’ away kit is black and purple, (refreshingly earthy adjectives from the Gas there, rather than, say, blackcurrant and midnight blue).  

Nevertheless, once some initial confusion over apparel had settled, (Dan wore a yellow bib for instance, to denote that he was not playing for the blue Bibs, but for the Colours) another entertaining match unfolded. The Bibs took an early lead and looked ominously strong, so Simon Gas served to handicap them by switching me to their ranks while beckoning on Mick, who had been calling out to Simon plaintively from behind the goal, to play for the Colours. 

Simon’s efforts to undermine the Bibs proved fruitless however, as they ran out handsome 7-2 winners. In among the goals was Alan, who intercepted a blindly hit backpass and calmly rounded the keeper, Alex, Phil, the prodigal Tony who was enjoying the freedom afforded by the Bibs’ intelligent midfield play and even myself. I would have scored twice were it not for a controversially ruled out goal following a drop ball that Simon Gas adjudged not to have been taken correctly, the ball (allegedly) failing to hit the floor first. This was one of a number of argument-provoking on-field decisions, with the other ongoing refereeing black hole being the head-height rule from corners.  

Away from issues associated with officialdom the Colours did make a number of decent chances but struggled to wade through Steve and Andy at the back and despite two decent goals from Matt, in what will be a valedictory performance before his expedition to south America, they failed to get closer to the Bibs’ score, despite enjoying plenty of the play.

A smaller crowd at the pub this week, but low numbers failed to stymie a lively debate concerning Scotland’s proposed independence from the rest of the United Kingdom. Goalkeeping Phil, Ian, Mick and Alan were the debaters in question; unsurprisingly the truculent Celts thought that Caledonia should be finally break free from centuries of English perfidy, conveniently ignoring the gusto with which many Scotsmen contributed to the spread of the British Empire. Ian pointed out that they had enough oil and whisky to make a go of things, but I think we all agreed it would be a shame to lose such a brilliant flag as the Union Jack. If they do leave the union all England need to do to maintain an economic hold over the frozen north is slap a 500% export tax on Buckfast. They’ll be hankering for a return of the Queen before closing time.

After the deluge

After what was pretty much a three month Summer break from football – watch and learn, Sepp Blatter – we returned to the newly refurbished Coram Field playing surface last Friday on the 13th September to a veritable monsoon. Slightly taking the edge of the freshly laid Astroturf, the colour of which I can only describe as luminescent, the hour’s play must have seen something like an inch of rain and rendered every man jack of us looking like a drowned rat.

Despite the deluge, a bumper crop of footballers young and old turned out for the first game of the 2013/2014 season. I’m not going to name every player, not so much because I can’t remember, but principally because I didn’t know everyone’s name. That’s how many people were there.

Still, tradition behoves me to make a stab at naming the two teams. Here goes:

Colours – me, Simon Gas, Danny, Alex, John (my cousin), David, the prodigal Tony, Paul, Ross

Bibs – Ian Arsenal, Matt, Dan, the last Yev, Phil, Kiwi Nick, Bearded Nick, Steve and two fellas I didn’t know, one of whom had to depart after smashing a tooth following an collision with the other

I make that 19 people – na-na-na-nineteen – which seems to tally with Simon Gas’ pre-match list, although one of the two new blokes left after a nasty collision which left him spitting blood (and quite possibly teeth) and I can’t recall seeing Phil for longer than the first twenty minutes or so.

Anyway, I believe the final score was 9-7 to the Bibs, (they won, anyway).

If some people hadn’t played since June then they certainly didn’t show it. Sadly, my rustiness was all too evident – my first attempt at a pass off to the right touchline for Danny rolled harmlessly out of play. Everyone laughed. I did exactly the same thing about three minutes later. No-one laughed.

Among the goals were Matt, who scored one excellent goal after nutmegging both me and then Simon Gas; Ross, following a short pass from myself; Yev, naturally; Alex, who scored a wonderfully entertaining effort in the manner of a dribbling wizard from the 1940’s; Tony, back from exile; my cousin John, following some mercurial footwork on the left; and Ian, who swivelled on the proverbial 6d and slammed one in from an acute angle. Given the torrid conditions there were a few efforts that slipped on a surface which was greasier than a Scottish chip-shop and skidded through fingers, hands and other sodden extremities.

All in all, great entertainment (not that anyone could have seen through all the rain).

I am pleased to report that The Skinners Arms is still open and was being patronised heavily by the various players who needed reviving. I left as Yev had bought Ian a quadruple whiskey in return for loaning him some bicycle equipment over the Summer. I hope the ride home went well, Ian.

Welcome back.