Match report no. 1 January 2019 (1/01/19)*

*I might try and keep this year’s blogs appear like a magazine or periodical for future reference.

As promised, I am trying to keep up to date with the match reports in 2019, (my one and only New Years’ resolution).

With everyone keen to burn off the thickening effects of two weeks of mince pies and pigs in blankets there was a bumper turn out last Friday, with Simon Gas turning folk away. Sadly, some of us were rendered unfit owing to some snowman bothering in the Urals. And Mick remains benched owing to hairline arm-knack courtesy of one of Sebastian’s howitzers.

Here are your two teams for the first game of 2019:

Blues: Geoff, Bristol Paul, Simon Gas, Ed, James, Joe, Charlie, Patrick Chen, Alan

Yellows: me, Ian Gooner, Steve, Shez, Tony, Peter, Mario, Nick, Simon Ink

By common consent, a close and well contested game, which just goes to show what can happen if people turn up (and on time).

The Yellows got off to a strong start and eased into a three goal lead. I was stationed in our half for almost all of the game so I was not privy to the first two goals, but Mario swept home the third for the Yellows, the culmination of a fine move that drew upon the respective talents of the timeless Tony, the percussive Peter and the nerveless Nick.

At three nil you might have thought it was game over, but the Blues came back into things through someone or other before Ed bagged a good goal; he hoved into view from the right and stabbed the ball home from about fifteen yards with the outside of his foot. Things then became somewhat attritional with the Yellows dropping back and inviting on pressure, which they were withstanding fairly comfortably until Mario underhit a back pass toward Tony which was greedily seized upon by Alan who snaffled home from about three yards.

Three apiece.

Never one to be out of the limelight for long, Mario made swift amends by controlling the ball and slamming home unerringly from all of about twenty yards or so. The Yellows had a couple of narrow squeaks before the final whistle but clung on to win by the odd goal in seven.

Final score: Yellows 4 – Blues 3

And so to the Skinners for the first time this year. No pork pageant for January, but plenty of chat about bachelor’s suppers, the recent festive period and, of course, association football.

See you shortly.

The Man Who Does The Blog

Hello and Happy New Year, one and all. Here we are in 2019 and back again for another year of huffing and puffing along the Elysian fields of Coram and generally raging against the dying of the light, (or in Tony’s case, just raging). 

Forgive me Father, it has been two months since the last blog, and much has happened.

Reading the last match report back in November it was all about Sebastian; well, the dynamic Colombian continued to torment us all with his incessant step-overs, relentless feinting and outrageous Rabonas right the way up to Christmas, before departing back to South America. James, his cousin, commandeered another member of the family (Thomas) to help swell the numbers and he too proved to be a fine player. Sadly, these two young Latin maestros conformed to every reductive stereotype in their final game together by arriving half an hour late, but the legend of Sebastian has already been set in stone and perhaps he’ll return one day to twist our blood once again.

Speaking of friends from across the seas, the prodigal Viking returned for the final game of 2018 – I speak, of course, of Ross. I had images of him rolling up three stone heavier having spent the six months since we’d last seen him gorging himself on puffin and whale blubber like a Nordic Alan Partridge during the Toblerone years, but no – he looked leaner than ever and was his usual busy self, making thrusting runs and straining with every sinew to score.

At this stage of the blog it might have become apparent that I’m a bit short of match reports.

I’ve managed to find an email from Simon Gas with the following players on (see below) and this reminds me that a pal of Yev’s played in Sebastian’s valedictory performance – name of Khanat – who proved to be very useful. I was introduced to him in the pub as the ‘Man Who Does The Blog’; given the dearth of red hot blog action recently I feel something of a fraud being labelled in this way, but better late than never, eh.

James; “The Colombian”; Thomas (James’s cousin); Danny (going in goal); me; Andy (if he arrives in time from Scotland – I think he did); Joe; Simon Ink; Ian Baggies; Ian Gooner; Yev, Khanat; Liam; Alan; Steve; Simon Gas

My other chief recollection of this game was that Alan accused me of trying to rig the teams so ensure I was on the winning team. It’s like he’d never met me before.

I’ve collated a suite of photos from Simon’s Christmas Pork Pageant (see below), so you can see for yourself who played that night – I have a better recall of this game than some of the others, possibly because of the pictures but probably because of the well-known memory-enhancing properties of pork. 

Simon Gas mucked up the teams by inviting on a ringer, who was obviously very good, which meant that my carefully weighted teams were thrown out of kilter. Despite this, a team comprising me, Geoff, Bert, Danny – based in goal – and some others managed to hold out for about 40 minutes at 1-1 after Steve had opened the scoring with a searing volley before Peter (or was it James?) scored a magnificent equaliser.

I think these were the two teams:

Yellows: Danny Father Christmas in goal, me, Geoff, Pete, Bert, James, Joe, James

Blues: Stu, Steve, Nick, Patrick, Simon Gas, Mr Ringer, Ross, Simon Ink

With about five minutes left Patrick finally made it 2-1 to the Blues before the wheels came well and truly off and the Yellows team shipped about a six more goals in the final few minutes, the majority coming through Patrick, although props should also go to Stu for another barnstorming performance.

Just as well the spread in the pub was so good. (Who knew we were all so photogenic?)

And what will the new year bring? Brexit ? Stuexit (he’s off to Canada next month)? Hopefully a few more blogs than in 2018, but I don’t want to hex it.

Until Friday, comrades. 

Wannabe!

Another week, another blog, another stellar performance from Sebastian to report on. With nineteen players in the mix this week – i.e. an odd number – our dear leader elected to invite a ringer onto the pitch to even the teams up, name of Merv. He wasn’t half bad. Here are your teams:

Blues: me, Joe, Charlie, Liam, James, Shez, Yev, Mario, Alan

Yellows: Sebastian (also starring Mick, Simon Gas, Ian Baggies, Mark, David, Stu, Merv, Simon Ink)

 

The Yellows quickly took a two-goal lead, although both were a bit soft. The first came after the goalkeeper could only parry Sebastian’s initial shot back into his path whereupon he slammed the ball unerringly home from an impressively tight angle; the second saw a gentle lob over the top spring Mick who had just a flat-footed ‘keeper to beat (which he duly did). I know, as I was that ‘keeper.

The Blues got a goal back via a poacher’s finish from Alan, and then they took advantage of what Alan described as the ‘Power Play’ when Sebastian was off the field for a few minutes to retrieve one of the balls to score three times, with Mario and Liam getting stuck in.

But before long the Yellows stuck their foot back on the accelerator to pull inexorably away from their rivals. David met a corner sweetly on the instep and volleyed home; Stu capped a trademark driving run by curling home and Sebastian repeatedly unleashed a series of low-slung howitzers that zinged into either corner.

Toward the end of the game James missed a slew of chances that were put on plate for him by Yev, Charlie and Mario, although in his defence he had sustained some unfortunate knee-knack.

I'm genuinely not sure about the final score, although the last goal of the night was an absolute farce, as the goalkeeping change that never was left either Stu or Merv with the simple task of passing the ball into an empty net. Highly avoidable.

Sebastian and friends 7 (?): Blues 4

Another fun evening out after the game; hot on the heels of Simon Gas’s exploits last week, "Our Ukrainian Player' (OUP) arranged to meet two Italian ladies, one of whom I am going to describe as ‘impossibly glamorous’, in the swanky bar underneath what I still think of as the Spice Girls hotel at St Pancras, after spotting them in the Skinners where they looked a trifle out of place. OUP very astutely divined that they were slumming it and made some arrangements to meet them somewhere altogether more salubrious.

David and I joined him, although we were soon sidelined by the smooth operator that OUP is as they discussed all things international. David and I being the dowdy Englishmen we are, we could not compete with all the Euro-glamour. Brexit, here we come.

A golden night

Another eventful night to report back on, with plenty of goals, gaffes and great celebrations. With Peter being a late withdrawal from proceedings, the two teams – which were perfectly balanced – were thrown out of kilter. Was it ever any different?

Here are your teams:

Yellows: Steve, Bristol Paul, me, Bert, Ed, Joe, Mario, Tony, Ian Gooner

Blues: Simon Gas, Simon Ink, Liam, Danny, Alan, James, Sebastian, Tannero, Yev

The game started much as it ended; with Sebastian hammering the ball not so much past Ed, our specialist ‘keeper, lest we forget, as through him in what became something of a motif for the game. This prompted some changes – Ed came out of goal and I went in – before Sebastian’s second saw a rejigging of the teams, (to little effect), with Ed and Yev swapping sides:

Yellows: Steve, Bristol Paul, me, Bert, Yev, Joe, Mario, Tony, Ian Gooner

Blues: Simon Gas, Simon Ink, Liam, Danny, Alan, James, Sebastian, Tannero, Ed

A word on the sides here; before the game was more than a few minutes old Alan was complaining that they weren’t fair because the Blue team didn’t have enough defenders – frankly, they didn’t need any – before Tony then opined that the Yellow team did not have enough strikers, hence the move to provide the Yellows with Yev, despite already having the not inconsiderable striking talent of Mario.

Never mind. Sebastian’s second, from memory, was from a tight angle whereupon the young Colombian maestro placed the ball with the outside of his boot into the top corner of the far post as he hoved in on goal. His next strike was from the other side of the area. With your correspondent still in nets, I stationed myself flush against the near post to prevent the ball from sneaking in, whereupon the South American elected to thrash the ball so hard that all I was able to sense was a breeze around my knees as the ball hurtled into the back of the net. 3-0 to the Blues.

This was the stage when Yev came over to join the Yellows, but Tony soon pegged the score back with a lofted shot direct from the restart that caught out James (?) in goal. 3-1. Thereafter, things become a bit blurry.

Two scruffy goals – one for each side – followed, with Steve closing down the otherwise immaculate Sebastian and forcing the ball in from close range. Next came arguably the moment of the night, as Tony responded to a call from Bert in goal by banging the ball blindly back toward his own goal and into the back of the net. Somehow, it was everyone else’s fault for talking.

Mario also scored direct from the restart, but by this stage the Yellows were hopelessly behind and Sebastian completed his own scoring by deftly dropping a shoulder, weaving inside and lining up yet another howitzer of a shot that would have probably taken Bert out in goal had he got anywhere near it. Speaking of which, the one passage in play during which Sebastian was in anyway subdued was when Bert fouled him from behind. Instructive, perhaps.

Final score: Sebastian 6 (7?) – Yellows 3

To the pub! Plenty to report on from the Skinners this week. Ian and I, of all people, were approached by a random punter and asked if we were Tottenham season ticket holders: fighting talk, I’d say. When we said no, but we knew a man who was, we realised that Tony had already left for the evening, presumably because we were talking too much, so Ian offered to keep the auteur’s Tottenham wristband safe until this Friday. You can see for yourself what happened next:

Onto happier things now, with Steve celebrating his half century in fine style. Ian demonstrated his inimitable largesse by procuring the sometime Scotsman with a bevy of age appropriate gifts, including: a Bells whisky miniature; a packet of shortbread; a tin of corned beef; a tube of superglue; some Vaseline (make the connection yourselves) and finally a postcard from the Queen to mark fifty years before he gets his telegram. (I should have been on the generation game).

And it would be remiss of me not to relay, gentle reader, that our dear leader, the Muswell Hillbilly himself, spent a not inconsiderable amount of time making the acquaintance of a delightful young lady named Elizabeth (from Huddersfield) and, it would seem, getting her phone number. More news as it comes.

Until Friday… 

Are you playing Manchester City?

Blog number two of the 2018/19 campaign coming up now, with two very different fixtures to report on. Friday 12^th October saw a poor game blighted by tardiness and other personnel issues that resulted in a one-sided gubbing. For the record, here were the two teams:

Yellows: Danny, Bristol Paul, Patrick C, me, Andy, Mario, Nick and Patrick (K)

Blues: Paul, Simon Gas, James, Ian Gooner, Yev, Mick, Peter and Joe

I believe that Yev ended up playing for the Yellow team because Peter and Joe were both late and were given Patrick C to compensate and the whole thing was very unsatisfactory with a final score of around 6-1. Mario and Patrick always make a potent strike force and it all got a bit much.

Conversely, last Friday’s game was, by happy common consent, one of our best for some time. There was a bizarre moment just before the game when a bloke walked in to the changing rooms with a wry grin and asked if we were about to play Manchester City; thankfully, the answer was ‘no’, although I reckon we’d have a chance if we deployed Steve as Raheem Sterling’s marker (not really). I think he was confusing us with one of the league teams that plays in a recognised team’s colours, but perhaps the question inspired us to raise the standard of play from the norm.

Here are your teams:

Yellows: Paul, Bert, James, me, Sebastian (James’ cousin), Charlie, Tony, Liam and Simon Gas

Blues: David, Joe, Ed, Shez, Peter, Danny and Yev

Joe’s late arrival owing to problems on the tube meant that he joined the Blue team, even though he was supposed to be a Yellow, leading Simon Gas to selflessly change bibs and join the Yellows, who had the weaker line-up. It shows the fine margins we live with really, because had he not done so it would be a one-sided riot of the game, but happily it was all right on the night.

A word about Sebastian, first – we’d first assumed that given the posh moniker some floppy haired fop would turn up clutching a teddy bear, but Sebastian turned out to be a fleet-footed Colombian dynamo, recycling possession and driving into pockets of space to free up his team-mates. How wrong we were!

The Blue team prevailed by three goals to one, (so, a relatively low scoring game). Their first arrived after a ball eluded all Yellows defenders and arrived at the back post for someone to steer past James; the second was an absolute gift / howler from me, as I attempted to take a backpass from Simon Gas on my instep and ping it wide to the full back on the right side of defence, but succeeded in merely pushing the ball straight to Yev who tapped into an open goal from about five yards; the third and final goal of the game was a good finish from young Ed who nipped in ahead of the keeper and squeezed the ball in from an acute angle.

All that aside, the Yellows had plenty of possession and pinged the ball around with what at times could be genuinely described as panache, with Bert and Tony making the ball do all the work at the back and James linking up well with his cousin in midfield, neither of whom deserved to lose. A bit of a thin game for Liam, who was feeding on scraps for all the Yellow possession, although he did get on the scoresheet following an uncharacteristic brain fade from Joe.

Immediately prior to Ed’s winning goal I took a corner that got cleared back out wide, so I smashed it hopefully back into the middle of the area and it fell to Sebastian who unleashed a venomous volley that careered back of the post and that just about summed up the Yellow performance. Well done to the Blues, who mopped up the pressure well and took their chances. And well done to Yev, who not only washed the bibs, but arrived early. Fancy that.

Mercifully, there was relatively little drama to mar proceedings and a game well worth eight quid.

Onto the pub, where just a few of us made it past half eight – Yev, me, Tony, Simon Gas and Paul. 

Topics under discussion included Tottenham’s new stadium and Harvey Weinstein before the evening became an impromptu smartphone workshop as we struggled and failed to download WhatsApp onto Paul’s phone.

See you Friday…

In the wolf's mouth

Welcome, one and all, to what is becoming an occasional look at events from Coram Fields on a Friday night. This is the first post of the new season and we’re well into October, so I trust that everyone had a great Summer, heatwave and World Cup fever now being a distant memory.

I’ve only played two of the five games of the new season, but felt moved to write following the departure of a genuine Coram Fields legend, albeit a very unassuming one - Michele. A box-to-box tour de force, not afraid to get stuck in, although with the steel comes a silky élan and a keen eye for goal. If I was being reductive I’d say that this mixture of gritty determination and ball-playing panache reflects his mixed Irish and Italian heritage, but it probably isn’t so I won’t. Despite the fact some of our number have never quite the hang of his name (hint: not Michaela), he’ll live long in the memory and hopefully he’ll join the pantheon of former players occasionally stopping by to roll back the years and join us on-stage for the odd encore.

I learnt something new courtesy of Adolfo’s valedictory message to Michele: “in bocca al lupo per lupo” got my interest pricked as I know that ‘bocca’ means mouth in Romance languages and lupo must be something to do with wolves. And so it turns out – this Italian phrase translates as something like ‘break a leg’, but literally means “in the wolf’s mouth”. Fancy that.

This greeting was delivered via the most notable development at Friday night football since the change to the overhead rule – the new WhatsApp group. Our dear leader has not so much embraced the twenty-first century as given it a cursory nod and a crisp handshake and created a new forum in which Ian can post vaguely not suitable for work images and for people to mute notifications for eight hours every Monday morning after they’ve confirmed their participation for the following week’s game.

Right, that’s more than 300 words without any mention of football.

I still have the teams for the second week of the new campaign, which are scribbled onto a piece of paper, Neville Chamberlain style. Here you go:

Yellows: Liam, Steve, Stu (congratulations), Bert, Joe, Peter, James, Mark and Ian Baggies

Blues: Yev (late), Danny, Shez, Simon Gas, Patrick, Michele, Josh, Bristol Paul, me

Lord knows what happened that night, but I think it was a fairly decent game, despite the odd late arrival. I have a memory of Patrick running amok and possibly setting up the much-lamented Michele, but really, it’s a bit of a blur.

I’ve mislaid the team news from the following week’s game, but the entire game descended into farce as a couple of players arrived late and there was a definite perception that one team was stronger than the other, with the effect that one team did indeed become stronger than the other and rather ran away with things, even though it was an evenly fought contest for the opening twenty minutes or so. Tony, I think it’s fair to say, was distinctly unimpressed.

I haven’t been around for the past fortnight, so I can only hope that you’ve been able to enjoy two more keenly contested games in that time and without all the hullabaloo.

See you Friday and cheerio Michele. 

Finale

Apologies for the dearth - [I originally typed the word ‘death’ here, which would be more accurate] -of reports recently, but as has become commonplace this season I aim to redress the paucity of Friday night football news with a round-up of the last few weeks of the season, including the valedictory evening for Ross Bicknell.

Here are my field notes from the final game in Ross’s long and illustrious Friday night career:

Ha det bra, Ross!

Two teams as follows:

Blues – Paul, Johnny, Steve, Antonio, Peter, Stan, Tony, Geoff, James

Yellows – me, David, Danny, Simon, Joe, Patrick, Mick, Ian Baggies… and Ross

Goals: Ross came on and got a late one, Patrick snaffled up at least three,

… and that’s as far as I got before the evil world of work took over the time I’d allocated to that particular report.

What I do recall is that I took the highly unusual, nay unprecedented, step of fixing the teams so that the side that Ross was on would prevail; sadly, what I could not predict was the fact that the fey indie shyster would only arrive with about twenty minutes to go. As such, the teams were fairly even for about 60% of the game. However, following his late arrival Ross did manage to get on the scoresheet, although the eventual victory for the Yellow team has to be slightly mitigated by the fact Tony was forced into goal following a groin injury that rendered him, in effect, useless.

This highly partial team selection, coupled with Tony’s chronic man-knack, meant a comfortable win for the Yellows, much to Tony’s (perhaps understandable) chagrin.

Far more memorable were the post-game drinks – see photos below – and the warmly drunken bonhomie with which we wished Ross all the very best for him and his young family. Well played, Ross. We hope to see you again.

Now, over to the Coram Fields jazz correspondent – Big ‘Chuff’ Gennaro – for one of his inimitable match reports:

Dear Simon, content for the blog. Our favourite ersatz Irishman did not confirm or deny that his children were born out of wedlock. If you want a real belly laugh ring up Mick's voicemail at the FT. He comes over all public school ya and he is on holiday until April 9th.

Why were you dancing and making loads of noise?

And when I snare a Spanish bint [Ed’s note – there was no ‘snaring’ that I could remember, just moderate bothering], could the lads stop saying I am married to a senora. Her name is Selva (Jungle), the senorita I introduced to the whole gang. A good translation is "Wild Thing". I kept humming the Jimi Hendrix version from Electric Ladyland.

Un embrazo, Pablo

PS I need to do more work on my Flamenco dancing

So there you have it. To defend Mick, he said that he’d received a plaintive message on his work phone that week from a Spanish speaking gentleman with a treasure trove of sporting and musical memories.

Onto last Friday’s game now, the grand finale of the current campaign. Despite the fact we have played so deep into the Summer that our professional idols are already back in pre-season, we had a highly respectable turn out on Friday 20^th July, with no fewer than seventeen players reporting for duty, most of them the dashing young blades based in the glamorous world of corporate finance. Here are your two teams -

Blues: Michele, Peter, Simon Gas, me, Joe, Mick, Bristol Paul, Andrew

Yellows: Adolpho, Alessandro, Antonio, Will, Danny, Paul, Nick, Stu, Patrick C

A couple of late line-up changes: Josh’s non-appearance meant that the Blues ended up with Joe while the ever-so-slightly-late Antonio turned from Blue to Yellow. This gave the Yellows a one-man advantage and that numerical weighting, combined with their side boasting the not inconsiderable ball playing talents of Will and Antonio (and Adolpho), meant that they dominated possession in a manner reminiscent of recent Spanish national teams.

Essentially, think of this game as one of those statistical oddities that Opta occasionally put out with one team enjoying three quarters of the possession but not managing any more shots on target than the team without the ball, (Jose Mourinho would have been proud of the Blue team).

As for the goals, Peter got us off the mark by smashing home a free kick for the Blues that almost took the net off, while Michele bagged the other two for the Blue team: one a deft flick from the outside of his right boot and the other following some fine counter attacking from Peter.

Not to be outdone, the Yellows also drilled home a free kick with Antonio being the recipient of some loose defending, while Will claimed the final goal of the 2018/19 season following a cross from Stu and a glancing effort that he or may not have meant which just eluded the otherwise immaculate Simon Gas in goals. A word for a player I’d not met before, Patrick C (one of the young financiers who generously find time to play with all the old duffers), who managed to smother one of Peter’s trademark howitzers from all of about eighteen inches during his stint in goal. Impressive.  

And props to Mick for one of the funnier moments of the season, after he accused Bristol Paul of virtue signalling after he dribbled the ball up the halfway line before passing the ball back to the opposition following a disputed handball call, thereby wasting about two minutes of the game.

Final score: Blues 3 – Yellows 3

All in all a good game to end the season, with everyone benefitting from a thorough work out in the wilting heat. And thus to the pub for a wonderful evening of Summer ale, chat and al fresco vertical drinking. Topics under discussion included the World Cup, Kylian Mbappe, holiday plans (including Simon’s journalistic trips to Seoul and Montreal), plastic recycling, flies and the merits of younger men enjoying time with older ladies. The usual, in other words.

Have a good Summer and see you all in September.