Rubber Sole

After a week’s interregnum – a consequence of man-lurgy and associated sniffles – the Friday night football blog is back. And from what I can gather I missed precious little last week, so fret not, blog readers. 

Our Muswell Hill based Commander in Chief this week chose the following two teams to do battle at Coram Fields:

Blues: Alan, Alex, Yev, Danny, Simon Gas, Tony, Neil*, me

Yellows: Steve, Carlo*, Daniel, Mario, Simon Ink, Dave, Mick, Patrick

*As you can see, a couple of newcomers there, including man mountain Carlo, whose contributions meant that we had a triumvirate of Italians. 

The two Kavanagh men and Yev were all slightly late, but only slightly, but before they’d had time to take to the field the Blues were already two ahead, both goals arriving courtesy of Alan. The first was an elegant lob over the ‘keeper via a pass from me and the second came via another cross from myself which was steered home from the back post. The ball crossed the line and hit Yev on the shoulder as he changed inside the goal, but it still counted. Alan could have had his hat-trick from the penalty spot soon after following an instinctive handball from Dave, but his left footed shot screwed wide of the post. No matter. Alan went on to score six as the Yellows eventually ran out winners to the tune of 11-8, (ish).

As alluded to previously, Yev’s customary tardiness was offset by the similarly late arrival of both Mick and his son and heir Patrick, who must be one of the very few eighteen year old Elastica fans, but despite this father-son link and the presence of the aforementioned Latin triptych the Yellows couldn’t quite make their possession count as the Blues’ shape held up well. On the scoresheet for the Yellows were Simon Ink, who got two goals – one a tap-in from a centre that bypassed me in a Mertesacker-esque fashion and another from a rebound when I was actually in goal – and Mario, inevitably, as well as Steve who snaffled one from all of three inches. Given that they scored around eight times, I’m sure Mick must have troubled the scoresheet too, particularly given his blatant goal-hanging. 

There was a hiatus of between five and ten minutes when the second of our two balls careered over the bar and into the pig enclosure to the rear of the pitches; this unscheduled break was only ended by Super Mario’s intervention as he was aided up and over the fence where he retrieved a total of three balls in a veritable carnival of ball gathering. 

This break was tacked on at the end of the game – and then some – as we played on until 8.20 pm. By this stage there’d been another intermission as Tony took a rubber stud from the sole of Daniel’s boot to the head (a definite case of feet up, but Tony was unlucky as he only slightly stooped to head a loose ball) and as ever with any head injury on a sports field there was claret everywhere. Mick accompanied the north London auteur from the pitch and saw him off to A&E to get stitched up.

As such, the Blues played out the final twenty minutes with a man less, but thanks to Danny’s organisation and Alex’s overall excellence they managed to hang on for the win as Yev punished the Blues for leaving too much space at the back; one of his goals saw him wrong foot the oncoming goalkeeper and calmly pass the ball home from around 25 yards. The Yellows did get closer to the Blues, thanks in part to some less than inspiring goalkeeping from me, but they eventually ran out of steam. 

The far-from-Autumnal balmy weather continues as a reasonable number of players made it to the pub. The Italian contingent went off in search of fun and adventure while myself, Alan, Yev, Mick, Danny, Steve and Simon Gas all enjoyed a few pints. Geoff, for whom the adjective mercurial could well have been devised, arrived at around 10.15pm and helped celebrate Steve’s 46^th birthday by sipping some excellent single malts. 

Get well soon, Tony.

Homo Trampus

A bumper turn out at Coram Fields this week (and a bumper blog, to boot).

The West Country CEO (I’m trying to come with a unique description of Señor Gas each week without using his first name) toyed and tinkered with his Chamberlainesque Piece of Paper and eventually came up with this set of teams:

Yellows: Andy, Tony, Simon Gas, me, Dave, Mario, Liam, Bristol Paul, Steve

Blues: Daniel, Alex, Yev, Mark, Ian Gooner, Alan, Simon Ink, Nick, Khalid

Nine aside, no-one late, even Stevens, game on.

Initial concerns that the Blues were too strong soon dissipated as despite having a highly potent forward line, the Yellows were well organised and retained their shape even when they struggled to retain the ball, with crowds of players gathering behind Alex and Yev in particular. 

The Yellows played Liam up front on his own and he led the line admirably, holding the ball up and bringing other people into play, chiefly Mario. The dynamic Genoese plundered no fewer than five goals, none of which were from less than around fifteen feet away from goal – one came through a thicket of legs and into the bottom right hand corner, another was lashed in from wide on the right, yet another came from a lateral pass from me which was stunned first time and slammed in the corner from distance. Also on the scoresheet were the tireless Liam and Dave, who managed to get two goals: one after a dainty run down the right hand side came from a fierce shot and the second, which was the final goal of the game, came from a distance of about an inch after Liam had headed one of my crosses onto the woodwork and then pinged the rebound onto the opposite post. 

As for the Blues, they did score a number of times – I believe that Alex scored two (he definitely got one I was in goal at the time) and Daniel may well have grabbed another. But, as alluded to earlier, some tenacious defending and some military-style barked instructions from Simon, Andy and in particular Tony (who is almost back to full strength) meant that the Blues never really made the most of their forward play.

Inevitably, frustration started to grow, as first one and then two balls careered over the fence. Sadly, the park at the end of the pitches was closed, so there was no-one to chuck the ball back over – as I said to Mark, where are all the cottaging homosexuals these days? That’s equality legislation for you. He was equally surprised that there were no tramps present either and we concluded that what you really need when a football is lost in a park - at night - are gay gentlemen of the road, Homo Trampus, if you will.

Eventually both balls did return, but sadly the Blues composure did not. There was no better illustration of this than an extraordinary series of outbursts from Nick, following a disputed throw-in call with Andy. Stramash No. 1 involved hurling a stream of invective at Andy, swiftly followed by Kerfuffle No.2 – hoofing the ball out onto the other pitches (although he did somewhat scuff his shot). This failure to connect properly no doubt precipitated Contretemps No. 3, which involved a skirmish with Tony and the icing on the cake came when he kicked Simon Gas’s ankles as he passed the ball forward. Simon made a suitably appalled gesture to express his disdain for such agricultural antics. Shocking stuff. Mariah Carey would have been proud. 

Final score – Yellows 8, Blues 4

A word about Paul ‘The Guvnor’, who was in attendance this week, but without football boots. This meant that he spent the game watching on from the side and not fetching the ball. Hopefully he’ll remember his full kit next week. 

Incredibly, we spent the vast majority of the evening outside the pub, despite the date being 3^rd October. Aside from discussing Nick’s almighty strop, other items under consideration were first cars and mid-life crisis cars, Islam and Yev’s daughter’s upcoming entrance exam to a posh school. More of which will follow…