In a dramatic move, the Guv'nor is proposing a code of conduct

In a dramatic move, the Guv'nor is proposing a code of conduct

In a dramatic move following a sensational pitch inspection of the new 3G surface at Coram Fields, the Guv'nor proposed a code of conduct for players to sign before the new season. This would include the individual game covering the 100 nicker cost of the pitch by the players, who actually played in that game. So for instance, if we have ten players, then they will pay £10 each. If we get twenty players, then it would be a fiver each. Certain guys do not do the fair shift in goal, or pass, or wash the bibs. Then, they should pay a fine. Any monies collected would be put in a fund for future physio, because we are not getting any younger.

High Summer

With the Summer transfer window wide open and silly season upon us, I thought I'd share a Haiku that I composed this morning on the train to work.

See you all in September; Geoff, we're sending an elite squad of middle aged footballers to help you get back from Manila.

Another Summer.

 

Demands, pleas, swoops and warchests.

 

Whither the football?

Chase Farm hospital

(This posted at Paul's request)...

Ever since he went bonkers after working at a media multinational, the Guv'nor (aka Enfield Dataman, Don Quijote de la Mancha and Costacurta to his mates on the astroturf), Mr Tanner has been keeping a close eye on the Chase Farm Hospital situation. 

Now he is moving up the gears to help save the A&E department at the North London hospital, which is earmarked for closure this November 2013. 

Any ideas on how to prevent this, gratefully received. 

His new blog (Don Quijote de la Enfield) looks like it is going to be completely barmy and shows the same signs of madness of his La Mancha hero.

Raw Power

First of all, many apologies for the delay in posting this final match report of the 2012/2013 season, a season which saw us move from our historic home of the Finsbury Leisure Centre to Coram Fields, a location which places us firmly in the Bloomsbury Set. The tardiness in getting this to you is unforgiveable, but a combination of work pressures and mid-Summer ennui (Je suis Thierry Ennui) has left this report unfinished and unwritten. Until now, that is.

The last Friday night match until September finished 6-3 to the Colours and the two teams lined up as follows:

Bibs: David, Steve, Liam (following a swap with Ian Geary), Ross (following Yev’s arrival), Phil, Paul, Ian Gough, Big Phil,

Colours: Yev (eventually), Simon Gas, Kiwi Nick, Bearded Nick, Andy, me, Liam (until half-time)

As you can see, there was a fair bit of chopping and changing which left some players with the philosophical trauma of deciding whether they had won or lost – if you score two goals for the winning team but are shifted onto the opposition midway through the game, are you both victor and vanquished? – although I think we can all agree that football was the real winner.

The notes which I hastily scribbled down after the game record that Yev, Liam and the Bearded Nick, who Ian seemed intent on goading for reasons unclear to all but himself, all appeared on the scoresheet. Following his traditional late arrival Yev’s contribution proved decisive with two (at least) trademark finishes, including the final goal of the campaign right at the death, as he rounded the keeper to touch into the empty net. Liam, a sort of Caledonian Lionel Messi, was in great form for both teams and it took some increasingly desperate defending from the Colours to fend off a late resurgence from the Bibs. Andy in particular was immense at the back (and in goal), while Simon Gas rolled back the years with a classy display that held the Colours’ shape even as they came increasingly under the proverbial cosh.

One of the Colours’ goals came after an unholy scramble which saw the ball ping off the back of a defender and into the path of (I think) Phil, who showed no sign of nerves and calmly steered past an exasperated Andy and into the far bottom corner.

Other notable incidents, at least from my memory, were some fresh air shots from at least two players (including me), an effort which Dave pushed onto the crossbar (me again) and a spectacular tumble which saw one of the players fall onto both knees in the manner of a GI in the film Platoon, (yep, that’ll be me again). The other outstanding memory of the match was Yev’s outburst toward the end as the ball careered off onto one of the neighbouring pitches for the umpteenth time. The group of sullen youths who were determinedly ignoring our exhortations to return the ball had proved irksome throughout proceedings, leaving an enraged Yev to declare – very loudly – that the young lads in question were terribly irritating and that ‘they just stand there like a [see you next Tuesday]’. Too true.

The end of season gala dinner dance took place in the curry house next to The Skinners Arms, somewhat to Simon Gas’ disappointment as he was hoping for a cold buffet in the pub. I can honestly say that it was the best Indian I’ve been out for in ages – the food was excellent, the staff were most hospitable (especially the statuesque Polish waitress who looked somewhat incongruous amongst the diminutive Bengali men) and the atmosphere was convivial without repeating the bellicosity of two years ago. Well done, everyone.

And what of Spizz, I hear you ask? Well, I am pleased to relay a confirmed sighting of the enigmatic post-punk icon from Yoko Ono’s Meltdown Festival, where Iggy and the Stooges played last week at the Festival Hall. Spizz was at the bar – obviously – without a ticket, (ditto) – and regaled my wife and I with a tale of the last time Iggy Pop had played at the Festival Hall, in 2008.

Spizz had joined the Lizard King on stage, whereupon the animated car insurance salesman had mistaken our Spizz for John Lydon. And so it came to pass that around five songs into last week’s set Iggy once more exhorted his audience to join him on stage and in amongst the hundred or so young people pogoing around Iggy was none other than Spizz, identifiable by his leather jacket, which bears the legend ‘Spizzenergi’, his trousers which bear the legend ‘Spizzenergi’ and an LED belt display that transmits the word ‘Spizzenergi’. Ticket or no, Spizz had got into the gig, reached the stage and started plugging his next gig on the 13thJuly. And then he fell over. Still, that’s rock n roll.

See you in September…

Of groins and groans…

As the domestic football season draws to a close and we head into the final few weeks of our opening campaign at Coram Fields the weather remains obstinately Spring-like, (which is a nice way of saying it is cool and rainy). Not that the damp weather stymied last Friday’s protagonists from enjoying a ten goal thriller, mind. Simon Gas’s exemplary planning once more saw him unsheathe a fateful piece of paper containing various male first names as he pre-selected the two teams to do battle last Friday. 

They lined up as follows:

Bibs: Alex, Steve, Andy, Liam, Dave, Paul, Ross

Colours: Simon Gas, Dan, Nick, Mark, me, Spizz, Joe (after a switch), Phil

Keeping Dan and Alex apart in an attempt to cancel one another out is always a wise move to make when picking the teams, but unfortunately for the Colours this strategy came somewhat unstuck when Dan came down with a nasty groin knack which meant that he had to play the remainder of the game in goal. At the time the scores were relatively close, but without the Colours’ talisman and all-round most effective player the Bibs started to look ominously dangerous so Simon changed things around, with Joe joining the Colours side.

With their ranks swollen by the addition of Joe, dodgy knee and all, the Colours started to claw their way back from a 4-1 deficit. The Bibs opening salvo had come from the fearsome attacking triumvirate of Alex, Liam and Ross, (none of whom showed any mercy to the crocked Dan in goal). The tide started to turn as Mark fired in from an acute angle to grab one goal back; Joe then managed to keep his composure to pass the ball calmly past Andy for 4-3 and Phil – freed from his usual berth between the posts – grabbed the equaliser after I’d managed to charge down the ball on the edge of the Bibs’ area. 

At 4-4 the game was delicately poised, with Andy stoically repelling the Colours’ shots in goal and Steve marshalling the Bibs’ defence. Likewise, Simon Gas was Beckenbauer-esque at the back for the Colours. Despite a hatful of chances for the Bibs, they failed to get their noses in front and the final score was 6-4 to the Colours. Spizz failed to get on the scoresheet in what will be his final game at Coram Fields this season, or in fact, until around November, but it wasn’t for the a dearth of opportunities; he uncharacteristically failed to take advantage of a couple of one-on-ones (he also played a good through ball for me, but I couldn’t get either myself or the ball around Andy). 

I think that one of Alex or Liam got the winning goal for the Bibs and despite finishing at least eight minutes before eight ‘o’ clock thanks to a combination of gamesmanship from the Colours and an inability to read the time from the clock positioned behind the pitches a late chance for Spizz which sailed harmlessly over the bar was all too indicative of the Bibs’ wastefulness upfront. Sad to say, even if we had utilised the remaining five minutes the final result was unlikely to change. 

And so to the Skinners Arms, where end of season discussion focussed on the weekend’s two big fixtures at Wembley - the Champions League and Play-Off Finals. Simon Gas couldn’t lose on Saturday night having hedged his £20 8-1 bet on Dortmund with a punt on Bayern to win the big pot, (you can see why he works for an august financial institution). Much talk was made of the potential of young Wilfried Zaha who won the penalty which means that Crystal Palace will be plying their trade in next season’s Premier League – I for one think Manchester United have a real talent on their books, despite his rough edges. 

Until Friday, blog readers, until Friday….

A Moral Draw

There are only so many ways you can begin a match report, so I’ll keep this one fairly brief. Last Friday some grown men played football near Russell Square for one hour.

Here’s what happened.

A man called Simon from Bristol picked two teams. One team wore yellow Bibs; one didn’t. The teams were made up of some other people that he has known for varying amounts of time, ranging from over twenty years to a few weeks. Their names are recorded in the following two lines of text:

Colours: Alex, Steve, Paul, Simon Gas, Yev (eventually), Kiwi Nick, Ian West Brom

Bibs: Dan, Matt, Spizz, Dave (following the arrival of Yev), Ian Arsenal, me, bearded Nick

The game got underway. I was in goal. A man on the other side of the fence from our football pitch was smoking a controlled substance, most probably cannabis. If pushed, I’d wager it was skunk weed. It stank to high heaven. This went on for about five minutes; I tried to keep away from the right hand side of the pitch for fear of becoming intoxicated.

The team not wearing Bibs, who shall be referred to henceforth as the ‘Colours’, scored some goals. A man called Alex from Stoke and some other men had the ball more than the team wearing Bibs and they made the team wearing the Bibs look a bit rubbish. The team wearing Bibs seemed more interested in scoring goals than stopping the Colours from scoring goals. This meant that the Bibs scored fewer goals, as the Colours had the ball more often.

Then a man from the Ukraine named Yev arrived. The man from Bristol called Simon decided that his team would have the man called Yev because he is very good at football and Simon likes to win the football matches which he organises. Which seems fair enough. So the Colours gave up one of their players, called Dave, and the Bibs had Yev.

The man smoking drugs had gone by this stage.

The Bibs then decided that if they wanted to score some goals of their own they better stop the other team having the ball so often, so their best two players, Dan and Matt, took charge of the team in midfield and started to create more chances and score some goals. I think that the scores were level for some periods of play; at others one team had scored more than the other. Eventually, the two teams had around seven or eight goals each. But some of the Bibs goals were dubious – one was scored despite a break in play for Nick with the beard to go and retrieve the ball after he’d kicked it over the fence - another one was scored while some of the Bibs were calling for a free kick at their end of the pitch.

Toward the end of the game a man called Spizz, who is a singer in a punk rock band, got very cross with his teammate Dave for the alleged crime of not passing to him often enough. He said that the reason his team were losing was because Dave hadn’t given him the ball, although most people thought Dave had played well and he was unlucky not to score himself, hitting the post twice. The ball made a very sweet noise on both occasions; Dave later used the word “timbre” when describing it.

As the big hand got nearer the number eight, Spizz was cajoled into going in goal. He was not happy about this as he has previously broken his fingers and the Colours scored two goals in quick succession, one when Spizz was kicking the ball from another game back onto the opposite pitch.

At the other end a man called Paul (or ‘Gennaro’, if you’re Ian) went in goal. He might well have been away for two weeks, but he had clearly been in intensive training, as he kept out two or three shots, the most memorable of which was from a header from Matt. Matt had jumped very high in the air to head the ball from a corner, but Paul put two arms out and the ball hit his hands and went over the bar. Lots of people remarked that Matt looked like a long-haired caveman from Newcastle called Andrew when he headed the ball.

I also had a shot which was hurtling into the goal, but Paul pushed that onto the post. The team not wearing Bibs – so, that’s the Colours – had scored 9 goals to the Bibs’ 8, but the man from Bristol declared that it was a “moral draw”. So a moral draw it was.

Lots of the men playing football then went to the pub to drink beer and talk about how famous men from their childhood were, in fact, perverts and criminals and should be locked up forever. But Sid James was not one of them.

This is the end of the match report.