No Mercy

Hello again, everyone – another week, another match report. 

Despite the freezing weather, the high turnouts continue as we lurch feet-first into 2017; here are your teams from last Friday:

Yellows – Simon Gas, Steve, Ian Baggies, Danny, Joe, Mario, Tony, Mark, Paul

Blues – Bristol Paul, Alan, Andy, me, Peter, Liam, Mick, Ross, David

As you can see, nine aside there – it was scheduled to be ten plays nine, but a friend of Peter’s with the somewhat unlikely moniker of ‘Braz’ was a late withdrawal.

Although the overall quality of the ensuing match left something to be desired – Tony opined that it was the “worst game of football” he’d ever played in – it was a close encounter, with just the one goal separating the two teams.

Mario scored what was comfortably the goal of the game, picking up a loose ball around the half-way line and chipping the ball sumptuously high into the night sky where it fell like a stone over the despairing head of whichever schmuck happened to be in goal for the Blues at the time. Mick Alan took a dangerous corner that brushed my head and shoulders before arriving sweetly on Liam’s noggin for the Blues’ first goal. 

In fact, Alan was in sparkling form, both assisting and scoring with ease, with a hand in all four of the Blues’ goals. Liam bagged one more courtesy of Alan, before Liam returned the favour with Alan tidying up and scoring after some nimble footwork from his celtic strike partner.

As for the Yellows’ other goals, Mario (?) capitalised on some loose defensive work from Andy and I believe Tony also troubled the scorers.  

The final score of the evening came after Alan yet more sterling work holding the ball up on the far touchline for yours truly to arrive and pass the ball home from close range with what I think it’s fair to describe as an uncharacteristic calmness. 

Final score: Blues 4 – Yellows 3

The major talking point of the evening was the irritating behaviour of two young scamps who spent at least fifteen minutes rolling around in a homoerotic tryst just inside the touchline before eventually getting bored and moving behind the goal to make fun of the middle aged men playing in front of them. Having been threatened with ejection from the arena they then waited until the ball had gone out (having hit the tree above the goal nearest the Foundling Museum), booted the ball as far away from us as they dare and then ran shrieking like a couple of One Direction fans off down the alleyway immediately behind the pitches to a volley of expletives. 

I appreciate that they were just looking for a reaction from us, but if they appear again next Friday we need to engineer a passage of play that involves Ian Gooner and Andy tussling for the ball and subsequently falling onto the pair of the young wretches. As they then lay squirming on the pitch, their breath becoming shallow and their very life-forces slowly ebbing away, they plaintively open the mouths to scream for help, but in vain, as nothing comes out. The two titans of the Coram Fields game rise very s  l  o   w  l  y to their feet, but too late.  As the whelps start to lose consciousness the last thing they’ll see is Tony leaning over their prone figures, wagging his index finger and calmly explaining that this is an inevitable consequence of Disrespecting The Game. There will be no mercy.

See you on Friday, as Simon regales us with tales of Alpine derring-do and evenings spent demolishing fondue.

Thumbs up for Joe and 2017

Happy New Year to you all and a very warm welcome back to your regular(ish) Friday night football review from the hurly-burly, rough and tumble world of Coram Fields.

Two games to report on as we head feet first into 2017, along with a player of the year award presentation. Firstly, we have the inaugural game of the New Year to reflect on – here were your teams:

Yellows – me, Andy, Nick, Mark, Danny, Joe, Yev (eventually), Steve and Mario

Blues – Ian Gooner, Simon Gas, David, Simon Ink, Tony, Peter, Liam, Alan and Ross

A slow burner this one, with the initial proceedings tempered by a lack of players as people gradually dribbled onto the pitch, with each side eventually evolving into the final line-ups shown above. Simon Ink actually started for the Yellow team – and opened the scoring – before the Morgan Stanley contingent and the perennially tardy Yev arrived. Simon Ink had by this stage reverted to his original colour team and the Blues ran out winners by something like two clear goals, with all of the usual suspects getting in on the scoring, including Alan, (disclaimer: I’m not sure if he did, but I’ve learned to find it politic to state that he’s scored, just in case I’ve missed something). 

Just the odd bit of drama to report on as Nick and Tony exchanged New Year’s pleasantries, no doubt born of being cooped up with recalcitrant family members over the festive period. Who had that last jar of pickled onions?

Joe received his 2016 Ballon D’Or / Golden Plimsoll award in the Skinners after the game to universal acclaim and a series of high fives from some Spanish teenagers. Simon’s largesse had stretched to a bottle of Lanson champagne to mark the occasion – no modish Italian fizz for the Muswell Hillbilly – and much merriment was made, including a discussion of whether or not the CIA would rub out the President-elect this side of the inauguration.

Onto this week’s game, which gave me the slightly difficult task of picking two even teams from an odd number of players. Happily, this proved to be no challenge for the Player Attributes Scoring System, as the final score and general tenor of the match proved. Here’s what said system came up with:

Yellows – Tony, Steve, the prodigal Geoff, Antonio, Nick, Danny, Mario and Liam

Blues – Ian Baggies, Simon Gas, me, Andy, Joe, Mark, Mick, Yev and Ross

As you can see the Blues had the extra man, while the Yellows had the extra ability.

A nine-goal thriller ensued, with Ross opening the scoring in the first few seconds to start the ball rolling on what consensus held to be a very good game. Just the one latecomer this week, with Mick eventually rocking up at around ten past seven, but by this stage the Yellows had levelled things up. Thereafter no one team got more than a goal ahead of their opponents as the lead changed hands several times. 

In amongst the goals this week, as well as Ross (who later scored a fine drilled finish over the ‘keeper’s head) were Mario and Tony, who picked out two excellent finishes into the bottom corners, as well as Steve who nodded home from close range following a corner. Yev also smashed one home as Geoff could only parry with his feet and into the back of the net, but it was Liam who had the final word for the Yellow team.

By the latter stages of the match Antonio, Danny, Mario, Tony and Nick were pinging the ball around to the general dismay of their opposition who I think it’s fair to say lacked the guile to hang onto the ball in midfield, for all of their potency on the break. 

As the game wound down, Antonio handled a backpass and in the ensuing debate as to whether to award an indirect free kick, or rather more sportingly, kick the ball back upfield for a Blue goalkick, Liam decided to stray off script and score a goal, which was quite rightly chalked off.

However, this had the apparent effect of giving the Yellow team an undeserved sense of injustice and just before the final whistle Liam rattled down the Blues’ right hand flank, jinked past Andy and slammed the ball into the bottom corner. 

Final score: Yellows – 5 Blues – 4

I think that it’s right to declare football the real winner, as the late Graham Taylor may well have said.

No pub for me this week, so your report ends there. 

Until next time…

Have a smashing Christmas!

The weather last Friday night was anything but festive, with an uncharacteristically balmy evening culminating in al fresco drinking. I think that we had something similar this time last year, so proof of global warming would be appear to be incontrovertible, in Judd Street at any rate.

  

Another round-up for you to compensate for recent radio silence, with three games to catch up on, two of which I played in and one I’m relying on second-hand reports for.

Three weeks ago now we had an eight asider which lingers long in my memory for the principal reason that I scored a goal in it – Grazie, Mario, for the assist as I drilled a ball in from the edge of the area which the Italian dynamo had cushioned and stopped dead. This was one of a few high points for myself that evening, the others coming in the form of what I am going to describe as a cavalcade of assists for Mario and Patrick as the team I was in, captained by Danny, ran out winners by something like 6-4. Other participants that night included Mick, on the opposing team to his son, a tardy arrival from Andrea which had the Blue team in a flap about perceived fairness and Tony, who was grumbling menacingly on the edge of the D and generally being fairly excellent on the ball.

The full line-ups, for the sake of posterity, were as follows:

Yellows – Ian Baggies, me, Andy, Joseph, Simon Gas, Mario, Danny and Patrick

Blues – Paul, Ed, Tony, Charlie, Ross, Alan, Mick and Andrea

With a weekend away with the in-laws leaving Simon Gas in full control of proceedings, including team selection, the second game in this week’s round-up finished with the Muswell Hillbilly on the winning team – plus ca change. Apparently he did agree to make a change to the suspiciously wonky looking starting line-ups, with one diminutive and highly prolific striker being swapping for another shortish man who scores lots of goals, (Mario and Liam passing on the halfway line like ships in the night).

And so to last Friday. Here are your two teams:

Blues – Patrick, Simon Gas, Steve, Ian Gooner, Mario, Tony, David

Yellows – me, Danny, Bristol Paul, Alan, Liam, Paul, Michele, Joseph

In what was by unanimous consensus a very even game, and therefore a victory for The System, the Blues triumphed by the odd goal in eleven.

Danny started off in nets, as is custom, and I think his tenure in goal saw the first score of the night as a breakdown in communication between him and Bristol Paul saw Patrick steal in to slot home. That was the first of at least three goals for the tall LSE undergraduate, another coming after he took advantage of some goalkeeping largesse from myself to lob the ball over my head from all of about eight yards and another after his stretched his long legs to ease past me and fire home. Patrick and Mario took a while to get going, but by the midway point had established your classic big ‘un and littl’un partnership, pinging passes between and betwixt and generally using the space to terrific effect. A little further back Tony was prompting and poking the ball around. Someone other than Patrick (probably Mario) managed to shoot past Bristol Paul, who had unwittingly unsighted me so that I did not see the ball until it slid inexorably past me and into the goal.

Not that the Blues had it all their own way. Liam and Alan also enjoyed a prolific evening with the Caledonian maestro opening his body up to slot home from an acute angle in one excellent move and being unceremoniously upended by his compatriot Steve for Danny to score from the penalty spot. Alan also scored two (?), the second a classic poacher’s finish after the ball had ping-ponged around in the penalty box. Although Simon Gas received some brickbats from his team-mates for slightly errant kicking from goal, he pulled off a number of decent saves, one (rather irritatingly) from me as I volleyed a shot which had been cut back from the byline by Alan. Grrr.

Final score: Blues 6 – Yellows 5

To be honest, a combination of me feeling very out of breath and a blizzard of goals in the middle of the game meant I was labouring under the tragic misapprehension that it was actually 6-5 to the Yellows until Alan broke the news that we’d lost the game. Given that we now live in a post-truth world I think we can all believe what we like.

And thus to the pub, where Steve, Ian, David, Simon, Paul and Bristol Paul all enjoyed a few pints outside. Topics under discussion included mods versus punks versus what Ian assures us where known as ‘Jam Boys’, Christmas itself and lastly the gentrification of Forest Gate which has led to artisan cheese stalls selling wares to bourgeois arrivistes, shops selling overpriced and utterly superfluous hipster tat (this is also something I’ve seen in Crystal Palace) and the bizarre phenomenon of independent coffee shops hustling punters to leave pound coins in a jar to buy coffee for the homeless. So now you know why your classic tramp has a can of Super Kestrel or White Lightening on the go – it’s to take the edge off all of those heritage flat whites they’ve been mainlining.

I’m away this weekend but will await reports of the return of the Christmas curry night with baited breath. Have a great Christmas with you and yours, have a wonderful New Year and here’s hoping that 2017 isn’t quite so batshit mental as 2016.

PS Don’t forget to text Simon Gas with your nominations for player of the year.

Cheers!

PPS If you’re in the mood for nostalgia, I spent a thoroughly enjoyable 25 minutes on Sunday watching this trip back down memory lane. The past is indeed a different country. 

A new Low

It seems like I’m always apologising for the delay or dearth of match reports recently, but I’ve no option other than to begin by stating that this post contains two reports as I’ve been so busy what with one thing and another, the another being work and the one thing being my family. Don’t worry; I’ve not fallen into some sort of post-Trump ennui – I’m old enough to remember Ronald Reagan getting elected as US President, so I know that Americans electing people totally unsuited for public office is not without parallel. This is a country which has Arnold Schwarzenegger as a state governor, lest we forget. Why would we be surprised by the latest turn of events?

Back to the football. The game two Fridays ago represented a new low, hence the image above – never in the decade I’ve been playing football on a Friday night have I seen people leaving the pitch before the final whistle en masse, (if three people can qualify as a masse). The teams were completely wonky thanks to people saying they were coming, then not coming, then coming afterall but instead of someone else who was supposed to be coming. Ergo, we ended up with Peter and Patrick on one team, while his brother John transmogrified into Callum. Oh, and Yev was late, just to put the tin hat on things. 

That said, the two teams were unbalanced – I didn’t hear Tony, who was on the victorious team, offer to change things, but I’ll take him at his word as he insisted after the game that he had made this offer on the half hour mark. As it was, a team with Mick, Peter, Patrick saw off the opposition boasting the not inconsiderable attacking talents of Liam, Mario and Callum by something like 9 goals to 1. Callum got the one, with Peter and Patrick being the chief beneficiaries of their opponents’ defensive largesse. 

In actual fact, the winning side’s final two goals arrived after Mario, Simon Gas and Ian had all deserted the ship, with Simon Gas scurrying after a fitful Mario to let him into the changing rooms and Ian Gooner deciding that he’d seen enough to warrant further participation. In mitigation, the losing team (posterity forgets which colour they donned) did keep the score at 3-0 for about 10-15 minutes, but they never got hold of the ball in midfield and featured very few ‘defenders’ worthy of that mantle.

Funnily enough, the final few minutes saw the losing team threaten more than when they were at full strength, but it’s probably a game best consigned to the dustbin of history, (including cyberspace). Onwards. And thanks to Paul for the sympathetic email. 

Slightly lower numbers were present this Friday just gone, although we had enough for seven aside. Simon Gas heroically made it back from Madrid in time for kick off, complete with novelty straw trilby. His arrival left the two teams like this:

Blues: Michele, Patrick, me, Mick, David, Simon Gas, Bristol Paul

Yellows: Ian Baggies (welcome back!), Mario, Paul, Tony, Danny, Alan, Ross

(No Scotsmen this week; obviously all at home shouting into their salty porridge). 

There was a little shilly-shallying to begin with as Tony’s slight lateness saw me start for the Blues, briefly join the Yellows and then return for the Blues, but I think it’s fair to say that this had a negligble effect on proceedings. There was another deluge of goals this week, although there were more evenly distributed that the previous game. In a break from the conservative and orthodox style of match reporting, I’m opting for a kind of ‘beat’ non-linear reportage which is more akin to freeform jazz than the restrictive oom-pah-pah of traditional match write-ups. 

Mario got the goal of the game, and quite possibly the season, by seizing on a loose ball in the centre circle and pinging it deliciously into the night sky whereupon it fell like an Autumn leaf over Simon Gas’s shoulder and just inside the crossbar. A close second was a score from Tony – I was tracking his run with subtle caution when he shaped to shoot from around 20 yards. ‘Go on, then’ I thought. And go on he did, the ball sailing off Tony’s left foot and nestling into the top corner. The Yellows may have had all the best tunes in terms of goals, but the Blues had more tracks to fill an album and bar an odd ten minute spell in the middle of the game when Mick, Patrick and Michele were clearly comparing sleeve notes and radical finger placements on their instruments, the Blues hit the strings more often than their counterparts and ultimately blew their horns harder than their opponents. Michele and Patrick shared the lion’s share of the goals for the Blues, linking up time and again to slot, ping and scat the ball home. Mick, as bandleader, cajoled and threatened and eventually conceded that his maverick son was playing his own way by eschewing some of the more obvious passes to his father and team-mate. In one move he demonstrated his attacking élan by swerving over a delicious twenty yard cross to his father’s feet; the father being so proud of his son’s skill he couldn’t overcome his proud tears to pass the ball into the net from about three yards.

What else happened? Not much, other than I managed to get on stage for the encore and steer the ball past Ross in goal. 

Final score: Something like 9 – 5 to the Blues. But scores are for squares, man!

And so the pub, which was showing the England v Scotland game. A Caledonian vision in pink were bested by a very poor English team which scored with three headers to get past the auld enemy, and with Raheem Sterling contriving to miss an open goal in a manner which would have had the Coram Fields contingent shaking their heads. The only other pubchat worth reporting was of the existence of celebrity Bristol Rovers’ fans. I give you Roni Size and Rod Hull (not sure about the Emu). Oh, and Ian Holloway, who they could probably do with as manager, never mind fan, judging by the result at the New Den last Saturday.

Until next time….