At least Goughie and Stevie A. made up in the Skinners afterwards.

A pulsating four-four draw was enlivened by a fight between Goughie and Stevie A,, Moany Tony calling the yellow team "cheats" (not very Corinthian spirited) and walking off with his blue team down four-three. Without the Spurs supporter, advert maker and professional singer we managed to get a well-deserved equaliser. (Did you see Spurs yesterday at Liverpool? They were absolutely shite and a disgrace to the shirt).

The game quickly became four-one to the yellows when Yev (on time this time), Stefan and Will cut us to pieces and aided and abetted by Fenian Mick, who was gracing some cool, media-type stubble on his chin. On our team the star performers were Dan, making a rare performance before relocating up norff to be with his bird in Harrogate, Moany Tony and Liam. In a controversial part of play Liam went down very close to the penalty area after a heavy challenge from Sheffield Andy. Somehow the Blues did not get the penalty despite the referee Gashead Simon being on our side.

At four-one the blues were losing badly but Chris took a central defensive role and with Gashead playing to his left and me the Guv'nor and debutant Tom, a friend of Dan, were playing in the right and suddenly we stopped leaking goals and so Dan, Moany Tony and Liam led the fight-back. For us Danny made an amazing block from Stevie A, while Gashead flung himself to keep a shot out when he was in goal.

As for the sensational fight, Ian "Goughie, www.arsenal.com
received a poor challenge from Stevie A, and retaliated with a volley of kicks and punches. Liam manfully stepped in to break up the warring parties. I was hugging the right touchline at the time and as I am of a nervous disposition, I looked away and so I had an Arsene Wenger moment of not fully seeing the controversial episode. At least Goughie and Stevie A. made up in the Skinners afterwards.

Although it was a pulsating draw, I thought the yellows shaded it with Will crashing a shot against the bar, Yev scoring a wonder goal showing great technique hooking in the ball, which arrived over his shoulder. Then, he missed a sitter when he could have passed the ball in to a central attacker for a tap-in. I played forlornly against Stefan, who looks younger than my son but I think the Young American did not get on the score sheet. I kept well away from Fenian Mick since in all the games I have played against him I have never once tackled him. At the end Mick K. was a bit distressed about all the lip in the game. If Moany Tony wants to call the opposition cheats in future I will ask him to vacate the pitch before he flounces off.

In the dressing room afterwards as usual Coram Fields laid on cold water. We should really get a discount (NB Gashead). Feisty Ian "Goughie" made some tasteless jokes about Dan going up to Yorkshire (will you be playing football on Ilkley Moor?). I know Yorkshire quite well having been to Skipton, where my relations are, and for a poor southern boy I have braved the delights of Barnsley, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Scarborough, York and Doncaster. I have only driven through Leeds but I am sure I will visit the cultural centre of the county some time soon. I have never been to Harrogate but I hear it is very nice.

Hotpants

Afternoon, all. Another week, another match report.

Friday’s game took place in the immediate aftermath of a hail storm that I got caught right in the middle of - it felt like someone was sticking pins in my head as I trudged across Coram Fields to get changed. Inevitably, once I reached the sanctuary of changing room number four the skies cleared.

Happily, both the rain and the hail had completely abated before the start of play and Simon Gas selected the following teams:

Blue Bibs – Stefan, Alex, Tony, Chris, Ian Arsenal, Phil, me, Simon Gas

Yellow Bibs – Bearded Nick, Spizz, Liam, Steve, Danny, Bristol Paul, Mario and Yev (of whom much more later)

The first ten minutes or so were played with the team in Blue having a man advantage, Yev’s arrival delayed by either the necessity of working late or possibly having to advise Vladimir Putin on his next geopolitical strategic move.

In that time the Blues had taken a 2-1 lead, Alex and Phil being the marksmen, (Phil’s goal was from the tightest of angles). At this juncture in proceedings the Blues were well worth their lead, pinging the ball around in midfield and utilising the extra man by playing the ball out from the back and making the most of the dynamic midfield triumvirate of Alex, Stefan and Tony.

However, with around fifteen minutes gone a familiar looking figure arrived, besuited and beseeching Simon to be allowed to play. Simon Gas, parked in goal for most of the game, was sufficiently distracted by Yev’s arrival to handle a backpass and concede an indirect free-kick which, fortunately, was squandered by the Yellows.

If Simon was distracted by Yev’s initial appearance from behind the goal then his subsequent introduction was not so much a distraction, as a cause celebre. As the London sky darkened, a strange figure came hobbling across the pitches, clad in football boots, socks, shirt and a towel. On reaching our field of play, the towel was discarded to reveal the Ukrainian striker wearing a full football kit minus a pair of shorts with only some black underwear to protect his modesty. Basically, Yev was playing in hotpants.

Unsurprisingly, this semi-indecent get-up proved to be highly distracting for the Blues and although their lead held for around ten minutes, eventually the Yellows drew level and then took an unassailable lead. Almost all of the Yellows’ goals were slightly fortuitous – deflections that went in the net or wrong-footed the Blues’ defence all took their toll, while some individual errors were ruthlessly punished by Yev and Spizz. Chris and I combined for one wholly avoidable goal; Chris was bringing the ball out of defence and I was too busy trying to recover my breath from an earlier run upfield to properly get out of his way. Chris crashed the ball off my back where Yev gleefully pounced to smash the ball home. Similarly, Tony was caught playing out of defence and there was a quick exchange of passes to see the trouserless Yev score once more.

The Blue team put together plenty of chances of their own and continued to play well, but luck was not on their side as a shot from Stefan ricocheted off of Danny and went just wide of the post. Nick got the final goal of the evening, which came via yet another deflection.

Final score: Yellows 6, Blues 2

With Yev reacquainted with his trousers we headed off to the pub where, for the second week in a row, we nabbed a table from the off. The chief topic of conversation was Russia’s reacquisition of the Crimea – Yev provided us with a genuinely interesting insight, as he explained that the citizens of the Crimean peninsula had, in effect, doubled their money overnight be voting to join the Russian Federation, given the strength of the Russian economy to that of its neighbour to the west. I didn’t hear that on Newsnight.

I’m off to see a band this Friday, but presumably Paul can provide next week’s blog. Until then…

Bib-bib, n’ bib-bib, yeah!

Greetings, Spizzenergi football blog readers. Another good workout this week, with the numbers of players just about stretching to seven aside, meaning there was lots of running, huffing and puffing. Simon Gas’s two teams, sans bibs, (the north London auteur Tony being the culprit who forgot to bring them), were as follows:

‘Darks’ (red, black, navy): me, Ian Arsenal, Chris, Tony, Dave, Phil, Will

‘Lights’ (white, light blue, yellow): Spizz, Mick, Liam, Simon Gas, Mario, Paul, Danny

And so we began, with both teams wearing a mixture of kit that broadly fell into either the categories ‘light’ or ‘dark’. There was some early confusion with Simon Gas wearing a dark blue t-shirt that had to be swapped with Phil via Danny, which saw the Bristol Rovers supremo playing in a fetching white vest that was reminiscent of a) a primary school PE lesson or b) a scene from a Louisiana strip joint (you choose).

It may have been a consequence of the confusion over colour, but there was a testy exchange between Mick and post punk legend Spizz, the gist of which was that Mick felt that Spizz was up front hogging the limelight while his team-mates were left doing too much of the legwork. Sport imitating art imitating life, no doubt.

Partly aided and abetted by the general confusion over team strips, the Lights roared into a three goal lead courtesy of goals from the aforementioned Spizz, who spotted Dave slightly wrong-footed on his line and then Mario, to whom I am almost obliged to add the prefix ‘Super’ and finally Danny. Mario’s goal in particular was an excellent shot; the barrel chested newcomer opened his body and sent the ball wide outside the ‘keeper (me in this instance) before it bent back into the far post.

At this point the Darks’ eyes adjusted to the early Spring gloom and they began to get themselves organised. I was being directed, nay commanded, around by (who else?) Tony, but the combination of West Ham Chris, another newcomer, at left half and Tony in midfield began to pay dividends as we got danger man Will increasingly into the game.

With Will and Phil getting in amongst the goals, the deficit began to reduce, although a slightly flukey goal from Spizz that went in off a defender’s heel proved, ultimately, to be the winner. There was just the one goal in it by the end, as Ian collected the ball from a distance of all of three yards, gave Simon Gas the eyes and pushed it inside the near post for the final goal of the night.

Final score: Darks 5 Lights 6

Hopefully we’ll have the Bibs back next week, as well as some more players.

And so once more to the pub. A rare treat this week, as we managed to grab a table and chairs from the off, leaving no man splintered off from the main group. The most memorable conversation revolved around the somewhat unlikely topic of climbing mountains; Danny regaled us with a tale involving his wife and the folly of climbing the Old Man of Conniston in jeans and t-shirts without any supplies or equipment and hailing some truculent mountaineers for help; Mick and Ian both had similar stories of unforgiving hillocks and woefully under-prepared outdoors enthusiasts.

When was the last time you heard words like ‘tarn’, ‘corrie’ and ‘scree’? GCSE Geography? Not in a west end boozer, I’d wager.

Yours geographically….

Springtime for Simon and Stefan

I fully intended to make up for the absence of last week’s blog – blame a week from hell, including the contraction of a nasty computer virus that left me wandering my office like David Banner without a friendly PC to use – by posting a bumper double edition on Sunday, but a friend’s 40^th birthday spiralled out of control and I lost the whole day to the kind of hangover I thought I’d left behind in the early years of the century. (This is what happens when my wife goes away).

As such, I am penning this on the other side of a weekend which saw Arsenal earn a Wembley appearance for the first time since the Birmingham City debacle of 2011 and resulted in me singing loudly in the residential streets surrounding my house at one in the morning.

First things first, February 28^th’s game, which I am labelling the Final Game of Winter, was a very busy affair, with both teams boasting around ten aside. With so many players on the pitch space was at an absolute premium, particularly in central midfield, and it took the faster feet and legs of players like Alex, Leandro, making his valedictory appearance at Coram Fields just as everyone had learnt his name, and a young American lad called Stefan to make the difference. I forget the colour of the bibs worn by the winning team, but one side ran out comfortable winners by a margin of around 10-2, with Will, Leandro, Alex and Stefan all impressing. Less impressive was Bearded Nick, who was lambasting all and sundry on his team, (including the Arthur Daley of New Wave, Spizz), although he did have the good grace to admit as much the following week.

That’s about all I can remember from the last game in February, which was played in the pouring rain and high winds that have made the past few months such a bleedin’ misery. Fast forward seven days and the contrast couldn’t have been any starker: from chill winds to a balmy evening inside one week, with not a drop of rain to be seen.

Happily, there were far fewer players on the park, making the game altogether more enjoyable and leaving one feeling as if you had a good work-out. Simon Gas picked the following two sides:

Yellows - me, Steve, Danny, Simon Ink, Stefan, Mick, Geoff

Blues - Simon Gas, Alan, Tony, Bristol Paul, Paul, Will, Bearded Nick

The Yellows roared into a three goal lead following scoring efforts from Stefan and a tremendous third goal from Simon Ink that saw the Yellows leading 4-1. The ‘1’ for the Blues was a spectacular looking finish from Alan, who was seemingly channelling African colossi like Didier Drogba and Emmanuel Adebayor when he received the ball on his chest with his back to goal before turning and smashing a volley in off the left post. At this point Simon Gas, never a man to accept defeat when it is still possible to engineer victory, switched the teams, apparently because Bristol Paul was carrying a knock. (This was by no means obvious as the West Countryman roamed forward from his left back berth with characteristic menace, but I suppose we will have to accept this alleged truth).

The revised line-ups looked like this: -

Yellows - me, Steve, Danny, Paul, Stefan, Mick, Geoff

Blues - Simon Gas, Alan, Tony, Bristol Paul, Simon Ink, Will, Bearded Nick

Shorn of our Olivier Giroud-like focal point the Yellows came under increasing pressure and a slew of goals from Tony and Will saw the Blues draw level. The final passage of the game was a desperate slug-fest to see who could get a winner – the Yellows’ goal lead something of a charmed life, although Steve and Danny marshalled the defence admirably, while Stefan missed a glorious one-on-one with Tony in goal, the north London auteur out-psyching the Kentucky tyro and forcing him too wide to get a decent shot off.

With the time creeping past eight ‘o’ clock Tony called the game off, saying he had to ‘be somewhere’. Simon Gas complied (speculation is mounting that Tony has a shoe-box full of polaroids of the younger Simon in compromising positions, (and we’re not talking about his place on the pitch)) and four apiece it ended, which was arguably the fairest result on the night.

It transpired that the place Tony needed to be was the Skinners Arms, where he was reclined with paper upon the arrival of the rest of us. After learning that young Stefan could have been out with his mates drinking in riverside locations but preferred to company of middle-aged men, talk turned to the remainder of the domestic football season and the weekend’s fixtures.

That’s it ‘til Friday – enjoy your week and I promise not to leave it so late next week.