Jacket required

With our Chef De Mission once again overseas, this time in Las Vegas, last Friday’s game was in danger of some extraordinary drama – previous Simon Gas sabbaticals have seen helicopters landing on the pitch, fistfights and even the end of our decades-long tenure at Old Street. Thankfully, nothing that alarming came to pass on Friday.

Before I launch into the match report, a few lines about the game on Friday 6^th April.

This match saw a debut from Stu’s mate Shez, who has quickly established himself as a very solid and reliable right sided halfback, and a late withdrawal from Nick. I’m struggling to recall the precise line-up of the two teams because they required comprehensive rejigging in the wake of the late changes, but I believe that the Yellows triumphed by something like seven goals to five – the Blue team valiantly fought back from 5-1 down, but a couple of late goals saw the Yellows home (one from Liam when he turned my weary middle-aged legs inside out before slotting home). Suffice to say that with both Kavanagh men on one team, in addition to goal-poacher-in-chief Liam, they were always going to be a real handful. That evening marked the first al fresco drinking of the year (much more of that come, hopefully), as Simon Gas, Ian Gooner, the two Kavanaghs and my cousin John all shared a few pints and some travelling tales.

Onto last week’s game. Here are your two teams:

Yellows: Simon Ink, Stu, James, Ian Gooner, Bristol Paul, Michele, Mick and Antonio

Blues: me, Steve, Nick, Andy, John, Danny, Shez and Patrick

I was relatively confident that these two sides were finely balanced, with eight players each, but a second minute hamstring twang from John reduced the Blue team from eight to seven. The Blue team took the lead through an opportunist finish from myself after Patrick had harried the Yellow defence and seen his initial shot parried, but the Yellows were soon on terms after Mick got in front of me at a corner to nod home. They thereafter established a strangle-hold on the midfield with Michele, Mick and Antonio being first to most of the loose balls. But a tremendous rear-guard effort from Danny, Steve and Shez, aided and abetted by a lengthy and impressive stint in nets from Andy, kept the Yellows (largely) at bay. Antonio bagged at least one – I think he scored the third goal for the Blues which was laid off for the burly Mauricio Pochettino lookalike to stroke home from the edge of the area.

At the other end Patrick was ploughing a relatively lonely furrow, with Danny and Shez storming forward to join the attacks wherever possible and Nick sniffing out any loose balls. I think that the Yellows lead 3-2 at one stage, but the Blue team were nothing if not tenacious and managed to equalise through Danny (?) before I bagged a stuffy fourth goal for the Blues after James dropped Patrick’s shot in front of me leaving the simplest of chances.

Thereafter the Blues just about managed to cling on, albeit by assigning Steve to ‘mark’ the irrepressible Antonio, which he did by wrestling, pushing and gently needling. Simon Ink had a one final chance to level things up, but despite getting his head to the ball from a corner he couldn’t get over it and his header went just over the bar. I spurned about three different chances to bag a rare hat-trick, but given that Mick opined it would have been the worst hat-trick “ever”, perhaps it’s as well I did.

The dogs of war-style effort from the Blues aside, it wasn’t the greatest game of football the world has ever known and one can only hope that this week’s warm weather will see something slightly more aesthetically pleasing.

Final score: Yellows 3 – Blues 4

No pub for me this week, but it sounds like there’s a story to tell as Simon Ink left his jacket in the Skinners whereupon Steve apparently seized on it and embarked on a drunken odyssey with Yev which ended up with him dancing with transvestites and spending the night at Yev’s place. 

The mind boggles.

This is football 'eritage

(Full match report to follow)....

From Generalissimo Tanner himself:

After the November 1917 revolution, White Russians would sell their clothes to raise funds in street markets. What Simon Jarvis caught there was not a Chas and Dave picture but a hard-edged commercial transaction of me trying to sell Mick my trainers. He has already taken a deer stalker hat and a Viet Nam cap and he has promised to pay me soon.

On the testimonial front, Ross is going to play a musical interlude like Superbowl. Petula is looking forward to wearing her Jamaica shirt. Sam Darg, who amazingly is living up North somewhere, says he will try and come.

The theme for the testimonial is "this is eritage" and I am scouting for a ref. Paul Colston? Me and Mick spent a good half hour talking about tracking back and the art of the block. We decided not to discuss passing but because that seems to be beyond redemption.

Please put May 25th in your diaries. I am going to ask La Senora Fernandez Rodriguez de la Parroquia de Xuances if I can put a thousand pounds behind the bar.

Following from Paul’s marvellous stream of consciousness post earlier this week, I’ve found some time to write a belated match report from last Friday’s game.

It was very much a case what might have been, as my two carefully selected teams, artfully poised to counter balance one another, were rendered useless by the fact that Antonio never turned up.

As such, we ended up with something of a mismatch that even the tardy addition of a ringer couldn’t compensate for. Here are your two teams:

Yellows: Danny, Patrick, Mario, Paul, Liam, Mick, Stu, Michele

Blues: me, David, Simon Gas, Joe, Nick, Ross, James, ringer (not Antonio)

The Yellow team steamed into a three goal lead before the ten minute mark was up – it was at this point Simon Gas invited on a ringer, who in all fairness did quite well. But the dye was already cast and with the Yellow team enjoying the fillip of Danny ending his spell in goal, the game got harder and harder for the Blues to stay in. By the end of the match there were passes going astray and people leaving the ball for one another in true ‘After you, Claude’ style  - the Yellows could have had more than their seven goals had they got their finishing right.

I’ll have a go at recalling some of the goals – Liam was in potent form and snaffled one by hanging off David’s shoulder; Mario also scored and I think Michele capped a typically impressive performance with at least one goal. James got one of the two Blues’ goals, for what it’s worth. 

Final score: Yellows 7 – Blues 2

Perhaps more memorable then what was ultimately a disappointing game of football was some of the conversation from the pub, where Ross, David and myself ignored the England game on the box for some wistful chat about girls we once knew (or more accurately, their chests). 

I hope you all had a good Easter weekend… see you next Friday for a calorie burning session.

 

Barista Barrister

As this infernal and seemingly eternal Winter shows no signs of abating, we can at least warm our cockles on the recent memories of Friday night football, with (inter alia), disputed goals, contested restarts, late appearances and missing footballs.

Last Friday night’s game took place just before the most recent oriental beast arrived (is it just me, or does anyone else think the Russians are behind this so they can sell us more Gazprom at a vastly inflated price?)

With just the one withdrawal on the day – specialist goalkeeper Ed “tweaked his quad”, apparently, (no, me neither) – we had two teams of eight:

Yellows: James, Mick, me, Simon Gas, David, Mario, Peter and Ross

Blues: Charlie, Steve, Ian Gooner, Andy, Danny, Nick, Michele and Liam

Mick aside, everyone arrived on time and the Yellow team took the lead through James, (I think). Before too long Steve had got the Blues back on terms with a fierce header from a corner and at this stage the Blue team grew stronger as Danny ended his spell in goal. The Blues then took the lead before Ross - recently married, lest we forget - illustrated the blend of composure and aggression that you’d hope for in a striker by slamming home an equaliser from just outside the area.

With the match finely balanced at two apiece, there was a sense that the fifth goal might prove to be pivotal in the game’s eventual outcome and so it proved, as a succession of defensive blunders and downright bad luck saw the Blues rattle in three in fairly quick succession: David could only partially parry a corner and someone or other (Charlie?) was on hand to snaffle the ball over the line, while James’ clearance in goal careered off of Peter’s knee and came back at the goal with more pace than the original shot, leaving him with no chance.  

David also had a hand foot in the Blues’ next goal, and although his attempted backpass was intercepted by Liam who made no mistake, his apparent culpability may be slightly mitigated by the fact I was hovering nearby, to little or no effect.

I think it was after this goal that Mario saw Andy, the Yellow goalkeeper at the time, off his line and away from his area and the Italian maestro artfully slammed the ball home from the halfway line. Given that many in the Blue team seemed to think that Andy’s absence was attributable to nothing other than a lack of concentration, the goal stood, although evidently Andy had been in the process of kicking the ball from the adjacent game back to their pitch. As such, one could argue that this was ungentlemanly conduct, although it later transpired that Mario could have had another goal when he prodded the ball home after Andy had took an aeon to take a goal kick. Again, it was subsequently revealed that Andy had caught said ball, so with him placing it on the ground Mario’s ‘goal’ should have stood.

The cumulative impact of those controversies was primarily to make Danny Very Angry. On the next restart he sallied forth over the halfway line with the ball rather like a randy bull anxious to gain access to the juicy heifers on the lower field and the next Blue attack almost yielded another goal, albeit that the ball just missed the target. In doing so, it trundled over a set of goalkeeping gloves, and they received the full force of Danny’s ire, being blamed for the miss and then getting booted off the pitch for good measure.

There may or may not have been time for one final goal, although Charlie’s final effort was dispatched at least twenty seconds after the final whistle.

The final score is therefore open to dispute, but if we discount the final goal because it was after the whistle, Mario’s goal for ungentlemanly conduct, but award Mario a goal for the goalkick that never was you end up with something like

Blues 6 - Yellows 3

And so to the pub!

We actually sat outside for around the first twenty minutes or so before the temperature started to plummet, and during this time we were treated to a sort of Tribute to the Music Hall, with a glut of Ken Dodd jokes interspersed with other one-liners, some of which were delivered more adroitly than others. Upon moving inside the Skinners topics under consideration included Ian’s imminent weekend in Skegness, which would have seemed like a punishment in this weather, along with a slew of pitches for BBC4 European noir crime dramas from David and Ian, including Barista Barrister, in which a legal eagle normally found presenting at the bar begins an undercover assignment in a coffee house in order to solve a murder. They seemed to have enough material for a fairly long narrative arc, with a series of sidekicks, akin to those in Lovejoy and Kavanagh QC (no worries on the casting for that one), joining the cast ­– as well as an Attwoodesque dystopian ‘legapocalypse’ involving baristas and barristers run amok. Must have been the beer.

Until Friday… 

Danny Malbec: nice body, disappointing finish

Welcome back, one and all, to the Friday Night Football Blog following our inaugural Winter break (of one week). I trust that we all feel rested and refreshed, even if we didn’t get to jet out on a warm weather-training trip to Dubai like our Premier League idols.

With the snow thawed and temperatures safely above five degrees we had nineteen people slated to play on Friday just gone, but a slew of late withdrawals and one cancellation (David) meant that we ended up with seven playing eight:

Yellows: me, Steve, Danny, James, Simon Ink, Antonio, Liam and Geoff

Blues: Simon Gas, Stu, Mark, Bristol Paul, Nick, Joe and Mario

(For the record, Geoff was the makeweight in an ultimately forlorn attempt to rebalance the sides following the last minute cancellations).

As is custom, Danny started off in goal for the Yellows and the two teams looked fairly even for the first ten minutes or so. Liam’s opening goal for the Yellows was cancelled out by Stu, who was in the right place at the far post to steer home a centre, (Lord alone knows where the rest of the Yellows’ defence was).

At one apiece I went in goal for the first change and Mario was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet as he thundered the ball against my near post from an acute angle. However, the superlative footwork of Antonio, the ceaseless running of Danny, now liberated from his tenure in nets, and Liam’s tenacity gradually took the game away the Blues as they edged further and further in front, with the jinky Scotsman causing most of the damage.

With the score at 4-1 to the Yellows we decided to tweak the teams to give the Blues the extra man for the final fifteen minutes and I gamely cross the Rubicon and donned a new bib. Fat lot of good it did: the Yellows went on to score another three goals, the pick of which was a ferocious shot from Danny that fizzed off his right boot and flew into the top corner.

Stu steered in the Blue’s only other goal towards the end; he chipped the ball forward more in hope than expectation, but James was inexplicably performing some gardening on the other side of the area and the ball sailed gently into the net.

Not too much else to report on; with a fine mizzle descending ceaselessly from the early Spring sky, following a real downpour earlier that afternoon, the playing surface was what you’d call ‘greasy’ and all but the deftest of touches resulted in the ball skidding off the pitch and out of play. We don’t get that many mismatches these days and this was one to chalk off to ill fortune.

Final score: Yellows 7 - Blues 2

And thus to a very busy Skinners Arms, where we struggled to get a table until around nine ‘o’ clock. Craig, the landlord, regaled Simon and I with details of his Portuguese retirement plan, and conversation turned to the merits of Buenos Aries, for reasons which escape me. (Although it did give me the opportunity to make a good gag about ‘Danny Malbec’). 

But much of the evening’s conversation revolved around Ross’s wedding on Saturday evening. Suffice to say that Simon Ink, currently flying solo, left the establishment with what we hope was a loin-girding pep talk from me, Geoff and Steve, (along with some terrible advice re: successful conversational gambits to use at a wedding reception). Full report to follow.

Popcorn for the eyes

Morning all, from a snowy East London. Another match report for you here, as I returned to the fray after a one-week absence during which Simon Gas resumed team selection duties for the first time in a few months, (and made an absolute Horlicks of it, by the sounds of things).

Here are your two teams…

Yellows: me, Stu, Paul, Bristol Paul, Simon Gas, Danny, Charlie, Joe and Liam

Blues: Ian Baggies, Ian Gooner, Geoff, Andrew, Steve, Mick, David, Michele and Ross

Pretty much everyone arrived on time and we enjoyed a decent game, fairly evenly contested with six goals. Michele very nearly scored in the opening exchanges but his first time shot from a decent cross from the right rattled the crossbar, possibly via a touch from Danny in goals. 

Liam snaffled the opening goal of the contest, but the Blues were soon on terms (Michele doing the damage?), before Liam once again outwitted the Blue defence and shuffled the ball home from an acute angle. At this stage the Yellow team were good value for their lead despite surrendering much of the possession to the Blues, who had monopolised midfield in the sort of sterile possession-style beloved of recent Spain teams. However, with Danny’s tenure in goal ending around the quarter hour mark the Yellow team gradually found their way out of defence and Stu and Charlie started to find the space for Liam’s merciless attacking.

The Blues equalised after I got caught trying to dribble out of defence and the ball got nudged through to Geoff, who demonstrated some admirable panache by wrong-footing Stu in goal and rolling the ball into the back of the net with aplomb. Two all.

The game could have then gone either way, but it is now my solemn duty to report on the next goal. A splendid move down the Yellows’ left, starting with some deft work from Liam to set Bristol Paul scampering down the touchline culminated in the ball being pinged across the byline where I had the task of tapping home from all of about two feet having burst through from midfield. 3-2 shortly became 4-2 as Charlie lolloped forward and gently guided the ball home to complete the evening’s scoring.

Not too much else to report; Charlie also managed to lose one of the balls over the Coram Fields side of the pitch and everyone else conformed to their usual playing styles, whether that be competitive, combative, skilful, cajoling or stoic. (Or just plain rubbish). 

Final score: Yellows 4 – Blues 2

And so onto the pub, where we managed to squeeze around one table and away from the Artic draught coming in from the doors. Topics under discussion included Ross’s recent stag do and upcoming nuptials, PPI payments (upsetting “financial Darwinism” was Ian’s memorable description) and the grapefruit beer on sale at the Skinners, which was surprisingly palatable.

I think we also briefly previewed yesterday’s League Cup Final. Incredibly, out of 45,000 other Arsenal fans I had managed to buy a ticket seated next to Ian Gooner, which we only realised when we compared tickets in the pub before leaving for Wembley. As for the match itself, the less said the better. My highlight was Ian bequeathing a giant bag of popcorn to me as he left the ground following David Silva’s goal.

Until next time…