A Shropshire Lad

Good day, one and all. It’s been a few weeks since the last blog, so I am trying to write something of a round-up today to bring us all up to speed on recent comings and goings at Coram Fields. In terms of goings, our esteemed Dear Leader has been whooping it up in South Africa, and more recently Oman, and leaving his namesake in charge of keys, bib and balls allocation, money collection, (in addition to team selection and match reports). I can see why Simon is semi-retired. 

In terms of comings, last Friday saw the guest appearance of Mr Sam Dargan, who must have a diabolical portrait in the attic somewhere as the last four years have seemingly done nothing to alter his appearance despite the combined travails of fatherhood and his banishment to the frigid wastes of Shrewsbury. Sam tipped up in the changing rooms with the knowing grin of a former cast member of EastEnders returned to wreak havoc in the Queen Vic. (‘Alright, Ma?’)

Other recent guests included two delightful young ladies from the London School of Economics’ football team who helped swell the ranks on Friday 1^st March when we were seriously depleted. Yev, perhaps inevitably, was the man to do the PR to get the two female players on board, although they were joined by their coach, a chap called Tony (I think). He was quite possibly the worst player we’ve ever had at Coram Fields; a lack of ability is one thing, but the man could barely be bothered to move. Lord knows what he’s coaching the ladies’ LSE team, but let’s hope his presence there has been approved by the local safeguarding agency.

I made some field notes on the game from Friday 22^nd February, so let’s start there.

Yellows: Andy, Kanat, me, Ed, Ian Gooner, Tony, Joe and Mario

Blues: Mick, Danny, David, Alan, Nick, Johannes (aka ‘Jay Jay’) and Carlo

Here are said notes:

Mario scored at least twice; a couple of speculative efforts which foxed David in goals; Johannes / JJ / Jay-Jay* was in amongst it and scored for the Blues, one a first time effort that swept in from just outside the area.

Ed was man of the match with a hat-trick, most of which he created himself by either latching on to other people’s knock-ons, or else ploughing his own furrow. Joe, moved to label Ed “the white Defoe” for his impressive goal scoring (an extraordinary image to conjure, I’m sure you’ll agree), also capped a fine performance with a Pogbaesque goal having gone box to box and picked up a pass to round the keeper.

 Pub chat: Alan, Mick, David and me talked beer, children and Brexit.

 *This gentleman is German, I believe, rather than Nigerian, so I am unsure of the correct spelling.

 No record kept of the score, sadly.

Onto the 1^st March, the game which was augmented by the LSE undergraduates. I believe these were the two teams:

Yellows: Steve, Tony, Ian Gooner, me, Kanat, Ed, Yev and young English LSE female footballer (name of Katie, if memory serves)

Tony: Bristol Paul, Danny, Andy, Geoff, Simon Ink, Mario, LSE Coach ‘Tony’, young French LSE female footballer (name incomprehensible to cloddy Anglo-Saxon ears)

An absolute shellacking this one, with the Yellows triumphing by seven or eight goals to nil. The two LSE undergraduates were both very fleet of foot and well-versed in the arts of dribbling and close control, but I’d say the English girl Katie was marginally more effective and she scored the winning goal from the penalty spot after Andy had handled. Her French counterpart was probably let down by the fact she was playing alongside her coach, who was as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike, and her Gallic chin dropped just a little by the end. Oh, and I scored (!), as stuffy a goal as you’re likely to see, with me following in on Geoff in goal and scuffing home a rebound from all of about two foot. And I think it was this game that saw Kanat score an absolute worldy, (as the pundits say), finding the top corner from about 25 yards out wide on the left. 

Paul Gennaro joined us in the pub after watching on the from sidelines (and heckling), and capped a memorable night by generously buying a round of Laphroaigs.

I missed the following game on Friday 8^th March, but am reliably informed that Alan ruined the entire evening  by scoring a goal in the dying minutes to deny everyone the satisfaction of participating in a 0-0.

And onto the week that (just) was, when your two teams were as follows:

Yellows: Shez, Sam, Nick, Patrick Chen, Danny, Charlie, Mario and Geoff

Blues: me, Kanat, Joe, Tony, Richard, Mick, Alan, young lad with Spanish name  

Once again we were sniffing around for players, and a local ringer with a vaguely Iberian name (starting with a ‘J’, I think) helped replace James and Yev, who were knee-knacked and hen-pecked respectively. 

Final score: Yellows 3 Blues 4

Always a bit difficult to predict the impact of a young ringer, but the boy played well and easily picked his way through the Blue defence on countless occasions, although for maximum effectiveness he would have passed sooner and more often.

As for the goals, I’ll go backwards: Mario scored a great winning goal from the edge of the area after some good work from Nick and Charlie. Earlier the Blues had come back from 3-1 down to equalise through a goal from a corner that was nodded in by Alan (?) and a close-range finish from Joe (?). The third Blue goal came from Nick when I was in goal; earlier I had equalised the Yellow opener by letting the ball hit my body from a corner, from whence it dribbled apologetically over the line. 

Given the difficult circumstances, a decent game.

Despite the return of the prodigal Dargan a relatively modest turn out at the Skinners this week, although me, Geoff, Mick and Sam reminisced and dissected topics as diverse as child abuse in the Catholic church, Brexit and life in Shropshire. You know it’s been a good evening when AE Housman gets five minutes of airtime.

I must tell the readers about the most extraordinary turn of events when ordering a round of drinks that I can recall in 30 years of carousing. I ordered a pint for myself and a Guinness for Sam, but before I could add another stout to the order (for Mick) the barman went AWOL midround. Given I was the only person at the bar and there were at least three staff on duty the young barmaid looked at me quizzically and we eventually concluded that the half-poured Guinness was mine, despite the fact the lad serving me was under the impression it belonged to a table of drinkers sat about 15 feet away. Eventually the bar manager with the hipster moustache and the Northern Irish accent took over, completed the round and apologised while his colleagues were in hysterics. I’ll be having words with Craig on Friday…

See you all at the end of the week when Simon Gas returns to Take Care of Business.

Match report no. 4 (12/02/2019)... Make mine a pinter

Following a fortnight’s hiatus, partly due to the big freeze that never was, I returned to the fray on Friday and selected the two following teams:

Yellows: me, Kanat, James, Simon Ink, Bristol Paul, Tony, Joe and Mario

Blues: Ian Gooner, Danny, Nick, David, Simon Gas, Mick, Ed and Yev

Eight aside and a pretty much a full house from the off, which makes a pleasant change.

An already greasy pitch was made positively slick by a sharp shower just after kick off, with the result that the surface played extremely quickly. A slight tap to a team-mate required very soft feet or the ball would career beyond the white line and into the next postal district. Just as well we’re such a deftly footed bunch then, eh? 

A very low scoring game this one, despite the surface being wetter than an otter’s pocket and there being plenty of space on the park to let rip speculative efforts from distance. Simon Ink was in goals for the Yellows for much of the game which may explain why they kept a clean sheet for around 50 minutes, while the prodigal Danny (welcome back), Nick and David did most of the keeping for the Blues.

The most notable element to proceedings was what the prevalence of what the cricket fraternity would refer to as “chirp”, with Tony, Danny and Mick providing enough dialogue (and enough robust Anglo-Saxon) to form a lost Harold Pinter script, as David sagely observed at full-time. Happily, there were few contentions decisions in terms of the outcome and it all made for an enjoyable game, despite the fact both teams struggled to string more than three passes together.

Just the two goals to report; I believe Mario bagged the opener for the Yellows, before Yev turned back the clock to provide a splendid example of speed and dribbling before firing the ball home for a relatively late equaliser for the Blues.

Final score: Yellows 1 – Blues 1

To the pub then, for one of those evenings which make me very pleased to part of the Coram Fields contingent. Among the luminaries under discussion, in no particular order, were: Max Weber, Niall Ferguson, Daniel Levy, Éamon de Valera, David Baddiel and Charles Haughey. This was with reference to items such as the European Union, the history of the Republic of Ireland from independence onwards, Tottenham’s new ground (wot no fromagerie?!), the Protestant work ethic and, obviously, football. You couldn’t buy that mix of high brow and working man’s culture. And all topped off with a semi-flirty, semi-aggressive interjection from a young woman with a stupendous cleavage. 

Come to think of it, David’s comment about Harold Pinter was very apt.

Match report no. 3 (03/02/19)+++Match postponed+++++

Pools panel result:

Blues 3 - Yellows 3 (three points)*

* (Based on Yev being ten minutes late for the Blues and Tony leaving ten minutes early for the Yellows. Steve sent off at the 40 minute mark for taking an illegal elbow sharpener onto the pitch).

A full preview of this Friday's game to come in Wednesday's Midweek Sports Special.

Match report no. 2 January 20149 (02/01/2019): Stu 8 - Simon 0

As promised, I am adhering to my one and only new year’s resolution and keeping the blog up to date in 2019. Here is match report number two and here are your two teams:

Yellows: me, Steve, Patrick Chen, Bristol Paul, Tony, Nick (hairy face), Peter, Ian Gooner and Mark

Blues: Shez, David, Simon Ink, Nick (smooth face), Simon Gas, Stu, Johannes, Joe and Alan

Official Coram Fields attendance: 1 (Paul)

Alan opened the scoring on the evening for his second goal in successive weeks – either a thirty yard screamer or a stuffy piece of goal hanging, depending on your viewpoint - and the Blue team were soon in the ascendancy despite the sterling efforts of the Yellow side, who were hampered by some last-minute tinkering that was necessitated by Simon’s omission of Shez from the team sheets and by the non-appearance of Yev’s mate Kanat. 

Shez was added to the Blue team with the notion of the Yellow side fielding ten men to the Blues’ nine, but the failure of Kanat to materialise left the Yellows seriously undercooked and despite a valiant effort of organisation class won out as the Blues scored thrice more. Joe prodded home for the second, while I was in goal for both the third and the fourth – the first of these was a shot from Stu that I ought to have done better with but could only palm into the net and I’ve no memory of the fourth. But at this point I decided that enough was enough and swapped sides with the ever-impressive Stu, to reset the game.

Peter immediately got the Yellows on the scoresheet with a stooping far-post header (the ball was whizzed over at a height of around seven feet, just under Peter’s chin). Tony then got a tap-in that marked the culmination of a flowing move, while the consensus seems to be that Peter got at least one more high altitude goal and the debutant Johannes capped a fine performance with another score.

All in all, a fairly dispiriting evening for me, with the aggregate goal difference for the two teams I represented being -8. Given that I’m cup tied for Friday’s game (off to the Emirates to see Doogie Howser’s Manchester United take on the home side), perhaps it’s a good opportunity for some mid-season additional training.

Off to the pub again, where Dry January is just a nasty rumour.

Topics under consideration were plentiful and included, inter alia: Paul’s proposed business opportunities for a Spizz biography as the post-punk icon enters his seventh decade and/or a published compendium of these blog match reports. (I’ve a feeling that either proposal would require significant crowd-funding). 

Speaking of the creator of this blog, he turned up to watch proceedings on the field, but got bored after about half an hour (can’t blame him) and next appeared in the Skinners alongside some well-dressed young Catalonian gentlemen. If this is going to be a regular tactic of Paul’s – i.e. watch the game, disappear off to the pub before the final whistle, he may well prove one to watch out for in future blogs.  

Elsewhere, me and Ian’s Cassandra-like morose predictions for the Arsenal v Chelsea were (happily) very wide of the mark, while we learnt about Ian’s avant-garde organisational development strategies that are taking the world of IT Project Management by its dry, dusty balls. To wit: meetings with all participants wearing Monty Panesar masks; team bonding sessions at the British Museum with children’s treasure maps; and, in what amounts to a cock very much snooked at identity politics, the practice of assuming a pseudonym for online team ‘huddles’: Ian chooses to identify as Rex Supergrey and won’t answer to anything else. 

I’m making a business case for the great man to come in to my place at our next ‘Town Hall’ meeting. 

Have a good game this week…