Saturday 28 April 2012

Colin, The Duchess of Kant


First of all, many apologies for not posting anything for last week’s game, (I had an awfully busy week). For the record, it finished 5-1 to the team in Colours, although the Bibs did take the lead through a rare-as-hen’s-teeth goal from Bristol’s Mr Dependable, Simon Gas. In greasy conditions, Simon’s fierce shot from wide on the left slipped under Danny’s feet in goal. That was as good as it got for the team in Bibs, however – despite Yev being joined by his compadre and fellow Ukrainian, Olympic guest Vitali, he could not find the net, (while Vitali was upended by Alex in a typically English challenge: welcome to Old Street). Alex generally ran riot and bagged a thoroughly deserved hat-trick, aided and abetted by two goals from Steve A. 

This Friday’s game was a seven aside affair, with the teams lining up as follows:

Bibs: me, Dan, Spizz, Yev, Simon Inkpen, Geoff, Sam

Colours: Joe, Alex, Danny, Simon Gas, Andy, Wing-Commander Will, Steve A

The game remained goalless for the first fifteen minutes, but the team in Bibs took the lead following a slightly speculative long-range effort from Yev. Much of the danger from the team in Colours came from an effervescent Joe and a characteristically domineering midfield performance from Alex and it was those two players who linked up most effectively. The Colours equaliser came somewhat fortuitously, with a desperate tackle from myself squirting across the area, past Dan and to an unmarked Joe at the far post who finished unerringly into the corner. The goal which proved to be the winner came from some delightful one-twos between Alex and Joe, with the Joe slipping his marker and fizzing the ball into the far corner.
Despite the attentions of Yev and gout-ridden punk rocker Spizz, the Bibs could not fashion an equaliser, although I managed to miss a chance that a tetraplegic tortoise could have put away, somehow contriving to miss an open goal from about six yards. A day that began with me spilling coffee over my trousers and all over the floor ended just as disappointingly. My misery was compounded by being heckled by the eight ‘o’ clock crew. Bastards.

And so to the pub. We have returned to the Old Fountain’s Head in the past fortnight, although last week’s trip was not one I was overly keen to repeat having been outrageously ignored by Jim at the bar. (This week’s blog is making me sound like a right loser). Last night’s sojourn was an altogether happier experience, chiefly as Yev regaled us with his tales of drunken lechery from the previous weekend when he and the aforementioned Vitali hit the avenues and alleyways of London Town. They ended the weekend in Tiger, Tiger in the Haymarket where both Yev and Vitali were much taken with a waitress named Colin, from Kant. At least that’s what it sounded like on Yev’s telling of the story. On repetition, her name could have been Holly, although whether she deserved the sobriquet of the Duchess of Kant it is impossible to say.

Monday 2 April 2012

Time gentlemen, please


The final Friday before the Easter break, the first Friday after the clocks went forward. Time, it seems, waits for no man and another football season lurches into its final, convulsive death throes. Still, mustn’t grumble.

Following last week’s na-na-na-na nineteen goal thriller, Simon Gas and Joe returned to action to provide pastoral care and team selection respectively. Joe selected the following two teams –

Bibs – Dan, Simon Gas, Steve A, Andy, Sam, Mick, Danny

Colours – me, Alex, Joe, Ian West Brom, Boro Dave, ringer Hugh (from the Seven ‘O’ Clock collective), Simon Inkpen

Boro Dave, despite looking as if he’d been beamed in from the early 50’s (having forgotten his kit he played with rolled up trousers, although he was sporting appropriate footwear) and Alex formed a potent partnership for the colours and helped the side sans luminous yellow apparel take a seemingly unassailable 4-1 lead, despite the attentions of defensive giants like Danny and Simon Gas. The team in Bibs got back into things after an absolute howler from myself in goals – a speculative centre was prodded toward goal by Dan, whereupon I experienced some sort of goalkeeping neurological meltdown and failed to either stop it with my hands or my body. Terrible stuff. Emboldened, the Bibs got another back a few minutes later after some slack defending. But despite a series of presentable chances falling to Andy and Mick the Bibs couldn’t find an equaliser, while at the other end wave after wave of attacks from the Boro Dave-Alex axis crashed harmlessly onto some resolute defending.

The game started to peter out with play reduced to hopeful balls forward into space and poor passing. Joe sustained a nasty knee injury after clacking patellas with Steve, who seemed largely unaffected. Hopefully nothing serious there.

Final score: Colours 4 Bibs 3

Eschewing the youthful hubbub of the Old Fountain’s Head, the hardy few who made it to the pub instead imbibed at the White Hart, where things seem altogether more old-fashioned, down to the mid-period Springsteen videos on the TV and the fact that they appear to have employed Carol Decker behind the bar. Will they be grateful of the custom? What effect will the new roof terrace at the Fountain have in the future?

Our old friend Time will reveal all....